
Class _/;.// gZ^ 

Book j_ /- ^ 

GoipgtitN^ 



EDUCATION 

A FIRST BOOK 



f^O-C 



EDUCATION 

A FIRST BOOK 



BY 

EDWARD L. THORNDIKE 

PROFESSOR OF 

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TEACHERS COLLEGE 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1912 

A 11 Rights Reserved 






Copyright, 1912, by 
Edward L. Thorndike 

Set up and electrotyped 
Published April, igi2 



r 



'Ji- 



£ CI. A^ 301)838 



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PREFACE 

This book furnishes an introduction to the study 
of education. It is, as entitled, a beginner's book. 
It will, I hope, prepare students in colleges and 
normal schools to see the significance of their 
more specialized studies in educational psy- 
chology and sociology, methods of teaching and 
class management, the history of educational 
theory and practice, and the applications of 
philosophy and ethics to education. It will also 
be of service to those whose study of the general 
facts and principles of education must be re- 
stricted to a brief course. 

Ideally, a student of education should first 
know many facts of biology, psychology, soci- 
ology, ethics and the other sciences of man. But 
he also needs to know something about education 
in order to make his studies in these sciences 
theoretically and practically fruitful. So it seems 
desirable to have some brief, simple, untechnical 
account of the aims, means, methods and results 
of education, of the conditions set by the laws of 
human nature, and of the part that school educa- 
tion plays in American life. The account given 
in the present volume is necessarily very limited, 
but nowhere, I trust, inaccurate or misleading. 

Teachers College, 
Columbia University, 
March, 1912. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Meaning and Value of Education . . i 
§ I. The Meaning of Education 
§ 2. The Need of Education 

II. The Aims of Education 9 

§ 3. The Value of Life 

§ 4. Improving and Satisfying Human 

Wants 
§ 5. Ultimate and Proximate Aims 

III. The Aims of Education {concluded) ... 19 

§ 6. Happiness 

§ 7. Utility ^ 

§ 8. Service 

§ 9. Morality 
§ 10. Perfectionism 
§ II. Natural Development 
§ 12. Knowledge 
§ 13. Mental Discipline 
§ 14. Culture 
§ 15. ^'/^iV/ 

§16. Custom and Reason in the Choice 
of Aims 

IV. The Material for Education : General 

Facts and Laws 52 

§ 17. Situation and Response as the 
Elements in Human Behavior 
§ 18. Intellect and Character Due to 

Intelligible Causes 
§ 19. The Physiological Basis of 

Human Nature 
§ 20, Individual Differences and their Causes 
vii 



Viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V. The Material for Education: The 

Original Nature of Man . . . . 71 
§21. Some Unlearned Tendencies of Man 
§ 22. The Social Instincts 
§ 23. Original Interests and Play 
§ 24. The Use of Unlearned Tendencies 
by Education 

VI. The Material for Education: The 

/ Learning Process 95 

V § 25. The Laws of Habit Formation 
§ 26. Selective Activities 
§27. Knowledge, Intellectual Powers^ 

Interests, Conduct and Skill 
§ 28. Improvement by Practice 
§ 29. The Influence of Improvement in 
One Ability upon the Condition 
of Other Abilities 

VII. The Means of Education 117 

§ 30. Educative Forces in General 

§ 31. The Values of Studies 

§ 32. What Knowledge is of Most Worth 

VIII. The Means of Education {concluded) . . 135 
§ 33. The Election of Studies 
§34. The Arrangement of Studies; 
Sequences and Correlations 
§ 35. Men and Women as Teachers 
§ 36. Personal versus Text-book Teaching 

IX. Methods in Education 168 

§ Z7' Methods for Habituation and 

Methods for Analysis 
§38. Verbal versus Realistic Methods: 

The Laboratory Method 
§ 39. Inductive Methods 
§40. Expressive Methods 



CONTENTS IX 

CHAPTER PAGE 

X. Methods in Education (concluded) . . . i88 
§41. Telling and Showing: Lectures and 

Demonstrations 
§ 42. Questioning 
§43. 'Developing' Methods 
§44. The Method of Discovery 
§ 45. Teaching Pupils How to Study 
§46. Methods in Moral Education 

XI. The Results of Education 203 

§ 47. The Results of Education as a Whole 
§48. The Results of School Education 
§ 49. Means of Measuring Educational 

Products 
§ 50. Scientific Studies of School Education 

XII. Education in the United States .... 229 
§ 51. The Students 
§ 52. The Teachers 

XIII. Education in the United StjA"^es 

{concluded) 262 

§ 53- Organisation and Courses of Study 
§ 54. Fiscal Aspects of Education 



chapter i 
The Meaning and Value of Education 

§ I. The Meaning of Education 

Man changes the world in which he is. He 

changes the earth's form, whether he only scrapes 

out a hole in which to hide, or re- 

amongrtha- moves mountains to join oceans. He 

nun arts and changes its living beings when he kills 

°* *** one bird or when he plants or destroys 
a forest. His fellow-men and his own nature are 
no less truly changed by what he is and does. 

The art of human life is to change the world 
for the better— to make things, animals, plants, 
men and oneself more serviceable for life's ends. 
Trees grow regardless of man's intent, but he 
prunes or trains them the better to satisfy his 
own wants, or plants others for the common good. 
Children, too, grow • in part by inner impulses 
apart from man's direction, but man tries to 
change their original natures into forms which 
serve his needs. Each man singly tries, by pro- 
ducing certain changes and preventing others, to 
make the world of things and men better for 
himself ; a group of men living together, so far as 
they possess wisdom, try to make things and men 
better for the group as a whole. 

t 



2 EDUCATION 

If human arts and industries are classified ac- 
cording to what is changed, education is grouped 
with government, hygiene, medicine, business ad- 
ministration, and the hke, as one of the arts 
busied with the production and prevention of 
changes in human beings. There are no hard and 
fast barriers separating one of these divisions of 
human activity from another. The meanings of 
the terms— moral education and government, 
physical education and hygiene, industrial educa- 
tion and the direction of labor— overlap in the 
case of each pair. Education is not a word con- 
fined rigidly to specified occupations of man, but 
refers vaguely to more or less of human activity 
in the production and prevention of changes in 
other human beings. In the broadest sense, man 
is an educator in every act that changes any other 
man. 

Its place as « Education is the production and 
part of science, prevention of changes. Its facts are 
a selection from the changes that go on in the 
world. Science, or knowledge, in reporting the 
ways of the world, groups all these changes often- 
est according to the objects which change. Thus 
in astronomy it reports the nature and changes of 
the stars; in chemistry, those of the atoms; and 
in biology, those of plants and animals. The ob- 
jects whose changes we study under education 
are living animals, usually those of the human 
species. 

The changes going on in any one object are of 



THE MEANING OF EDUCATION 3 

many sorts. Thus a man is a mass of matter 
subject to laws of gravitation, electrical conduc- 
tion, and the like, so that some of the changes in 
him are for physics to study ; he is also a con- 
cretion of atoms of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, 
carbon and the like, so that some of the changes 
in him are for chemistry to study ; other changes 
in men belong under anatomy ; still others, under 
physiology; still others are referred to the many 
specialized sciences of intellect and character. 

Which of the changes that go on in an animal 
shall be studied under the heading Education, is 
for science a matter of useful selection rather than 
of absolute necessary appropriateness. Thought 
can be logical, systematic and fruitful, no mat- 
ter where it draws the line between educational 
and non-educational. It is customary to include 
under education the changes in intellect, char- 
acter and skill, and tp exclude the changes in the 
body's gross physical and chemical properties, 
such as the rate at which it falls, or the depth at 
which it floats. But the exact selection from the 
facts of a man's life which shall be called his 
education, may be decided by convenience. A 
thinker about human education may choose his 
subject matter freely from whatever sciences con- 
cern man. Physiology, the science of digestion, 
ex^cretion, circulation and the like; psychology, 
the science of intellect and character ; sociology, 
the science of man's behavior with other men in 
a community ; pathology, the science of disturb- 



4 EDUCATION 

ances of efficient life; even parts of physics and 
chemistry— all may contribute to the science of 
education. No clear boundary separates man's 
education from the rest of his life. In the broad- 
est sense his education is his life. 

§ 2. The Need of Education 

If all human beings save new-bom infants 
vanished to another planet, and if by a miracle 
Toutiiiie ^^^ babies were kept alive for a score 
the gift* of of years, preserving whatever knowl- 
** "** edge and skill came from natural 
inner growth, and lacking only the influence of 
the educational activities of other men, they 
would, at the age of twenty-one, be a horde of 
animals. They would get a precarious living 
from fruits, berries and small animals, would 
easily become victims of malaria, yellow fever, 
small-pox and plague, and would know little 
more of language, mechanic arts or provision for 
the future than the monkeys. They would be 
distinguishable from other mammalian species 
chiefly by a much greater variety of bodily move- 
ments, especially of the hands, mouth-parts and 
face, a much quicker rate of learning, and a 
very much keener satisfaction in mental life for 
its own sake. They would consequently enjoy 
the remnants of civilization, using the books, 
tools, engines, and the like as toys, somewhat 
more intelligently than would apes, but they 



THE NEED OF EDUCATION 5 

would not read the books, repair the tools, or 
make of the engines more than spectacles for 
amusement, wonder and fear. 

Whatever charms the life of a man left to his 
own original nature would have, it is certain that 
no wise man would choose that life for his chil- 
dren, and that the energies of men, so far back as 
we can trace them, have been spent in preventing 
that life by education. 

So it is not enough to change the face of the 
world with cities, mines, farms and factories. 
Man must be taught to use them. Advantageous 
chianges in the world's things produce their bene- 
fits only when accompanied by changes in the 
human natures who are to live with them. , ' 
The need of b«t- Such education as man gives him- 
teroducAtion. g^jf to-day prevents* each new genera- 
tion from stagnating in brutish ignorance, folly 
and pain. But far better education is needed to 
reduce the still appalling sum of error, injustice, 
misery and stupidity. Consider, for example, our 
present behavior toward war, labor and welfare. 
PornatioBAi Even the most civilized nations 

weiiaw. j^jjyg j^Q^ yg^ learned to settle inter- 

national disputes by a court of expert judges, or 
to prevent national violence and law-breaking by 
an international police. Theft, arson and murder 
are still honored, provided they be done wholesale 
by a nation. And the wise opinion is that the 
only sure preventive of war is by educating men 
to think of it as a futile crime. 



O EDUCATION 

Even the most civilized nations also commit, 
year after year, the consummate blunder of not 
letting men work who wish to work and are able 
to work to the advantage of the common good. 
A President of this country is reported to have 
said when asked what should be done for the mil- 
lion unemployed, *God knows.* But man must 
learn. Until man knows how to arrange national 
affairs so that no willing, capable worker shall be 
miserable in enforced idleness, education is in- 
complete. 

Forpenonai In even the most civilized nations 

happineM. ^\^^ majority of men are not rational 
even about their own welfare. They do not value 
absolute goods, taking satisfaction in proportion 
to the beauty, property, leisure, friends, and the 
like which are theirs. On the contrary, very 
many of their satisfactions and discomforts 
are caused by purely relative conditions,— being 
better-looking than Jones, not owning so large a 
house as Smith's, having to work more than 
other men. It is pitifully true that many a man 
would object to being twice as well off as he now 
is, if the condition were attached that every one 
else should be ten times as well off. And some 
men are so stupid in their envy that they can 
hardly see the difference between, on the one 
hand, adding a given amount, x, to the welfare of 
all other men and, on the other, subtracting x 
from their own personal store. There is perhaps 
no greater barrier to human happiness than this 




THE NEED OF EDUCATION 

irrational bookkeeping of welfare in terms of 
relative status alone. For it, too, better educa- 
tion is the preventive and cure. 
For control Education, too, is the necessary 

of Mturt. basis of all the arts and industries 
whereby man changes his outside conditions for 
the better. To so change them he must in each 
generation change himself. He must acquire the 
knowledge and skill, or the crops will not grow, 
the bacilli which cause disease will not be killed, 
the houses will not be built, the poems, paintings 
and operas will not be composed, humane and 
rational laws and institutions will not be estab- 
lished. 

MeAnsofmak- ^^" improves education as he im- 
ingoducation proves any other human activity — by 
^^'* open-minded thought about it, by 

learning the results of existing forms of it, by 
experimenting with other forms, and by clearing 
up and making reasonable our notions of what 
changes we should make in human beings and of 
how we should make them. Such impartial 
scientific study of man's efforts to change himself 
for the better has been receiving more and more 
attention within the last twenty years. In the 
case of school education, for instance, the actual 
changes wrought in boys and girls by this or that 
form of education are being measured, old and 
new methods are being tested by experiment in 
the same spirit of zeal and care for the truth that 
animates the man of science, and the educational 



8 EDUCATION 

customs which have been accepted unthinkingly 
by 'use and wont' are being required to justify 
themselves to reason. 

Such scientific study faces five problems or 
groups of problems, namely, those of : 

1. The Aims of Education. What changes 

should be made in human beings by schools 
and other educating forces ? 

2. The Material or Subjects of Education. 

What is the original nature of the human 
beings whom we have to change? What 
are the principles or laws of human nature 
and behavior that we need to know in order 
to change men for the better ? 

3. The Means and Agents of Education. What 

forces are at our command in the task of 
producing and preventing changes in human 
beings ? 

4. The Methods of Education. How should 

these means and agents be brought to bear 
upon the subjects of education so as best to 
realize its aims ? 

5. The Results of Education. What have been 

the actual eflPects of different methods, 
means, and agents acting upon differenf 
kinds of human beings ? 



chapter ii 
The Aims of Education 

§ 3. The Values of Life 

The value of any change in things or men is its 
value to somebody, its satisfaction of somebody's 
AU values want. Things are not good and bad 
depend on for no reason. Better and worse, 
worthy and harmful, right and 
wrong, have meaning only in reference to con- 
scious beings whose lives can be made more 
satisfying or more bearable. 

A thing or event or act or condition is not, in 
the last analysis, desirable because it is valuable. 
It is valuable because it is desirable, — because it 
satisfies a want or craving or impulse of some 
man or other conscious being. Suppose, for 
instance, that all creatures had been, and now and 
in the future were to be, blind. The most beauti- 
ful painting would be no better than the ugliest ; 
for it could have made or make no difference to 
anybody. Suppose that all beings, past, present 
and future, existed equally well and equally hap- 
pily without as with food — that no one wanted 
food or drink. Temperance would be no longer 
a virtue, and gluttony no longer a sin. They 

9 



10 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

would simply be accidental qualities like the color 
of one's eyes. For the temperate man would 
satisfy no want of his own or any one else's, nor 
would the glutton's acts imply deprivation for 
anybody else. 

The values of Value or worth or the good means 
human acts, power to satisfy wants. One thing or 
act is more valuable or more worthy or better 
than another because it satisfies more wants or 
causes less privation. To discover the cause of, 
and a preventive of, cancer would thus be a very 
worthy act because it would add so much to and 
subtract so little from the world's sum of satis- 
faction and would abolish so many thwartings 
and deprivations. 

Some acts, like the discovery of new truth 
about the world, or the production of a noble 
poem, are almost wholly good, since they are of 
enormous benefit to the world at large and need 
involve no sacrifice on the part of the one who 
does them. Some acts, like cruelty, useless worry 
or selfish idleness, are almost wholly bad, since 
they give little satisfaction to the one who com- 
mits them and none to any one else, and cause 
enormous amounts of misery. 

Many changes in things and men possess ele- 
ments both good and harmful, because, as the 
world is arranged, whatever is done in any given 
situation can hardly be best for everybody — a 
perfect satisfier for all. Even the mother's love 
for her child may make some unloved child, who 



IMPROVING AND SATISFYING WANTS II 

witnesses it, unhappier. If I work, there is prob- 
ably somebody who would be more content if I 
remained idle with him. If I remain idle, some- 
body will have to go without what my labor would 
have produced. 

§ 4. Improving and Satisfying Human Wants 

Human life would be most successful if men 
and women wanted only what was good and had 
all their wants satisfied. The aim of existence 
should be to make our wants better and to satisfy 
them. If by education we could abolish the crav- 
ing to tyrannize and oppress, so that no living 
being would feel it, replacing it by the craving to 
see others happy, the world would be richer ; for 
we should have got rid of a want whose satisfac- 
tion was always at the expense of others, in favor 
of a want whose satisfaction came as a free gift 
from the satisfaction of others. When education 
gives a child the power to read, it in so far en- 
riches the world by making that child's craving 
for knowledge more satisfiable. 

The aims of education should then be : to make 
men want the right things, and to make them 
better able so to control all the forces of nature 
and themselves that they can satisfy these wants. 
We have to make use of nature, to cooperate with 
each other, and to improve ourselves. 

The first great element in making human wants 
better is to increase the good will — the disposi- 



12 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

tion to care for others' welfare as well as for 
one's own — the desire to see the good wants of 
Increasing Others satisfied. To wish the welfare 
goodwiu of all men is one of the best of wants, 
owar men. £^^ ^^ -^ ^ want which every satisfier 

of all will satisfy. 

The second gfreat means of makinsf 
Increasing the . , 

impersonal human wants better is to cultivate the 
unselfish impersonal pleasures. Some satisfac- 

pleasures. . 

tions, such as the enjoyment of pro- 
ductive labor, health, good reading and study, 
are impersonal in the sense that for one to have 
the pleasure does not prevent anybody else from 
having it. They are unlike the pleasures of eat- 
ing or owning or wearing things, where the pleas- 
ure of one man usually uses up a possible means 
of satisfying some other man. One of the most 
nearly perfect of all impulses is the impulse to 
advance knowledge of ourselves and the world in 
which we are to live. For this impulse is imper- 
sonal—all men may profit by the truth. It en- 
riches everybody else's possibilities of satisfying 
the same want — the more knowledge man has, 
the easier it is to get more. It predisposes men 
against unsatisfiable wants — to know what the 
world really is prevents us from wanting what it 
cannot give. It leads to the satisfaction of all 
good wants — knowledge is power. 

The third great means of making human wants 
better is the elimination of wants which must in ■ 
the nature of things bring about a surplus of dis- 



IMPROVING AND SATISFYING WANTS 1 3 

satisfaction. Such, for instance, are the wants 
represented by superstition. To want the help of 
-. . _ . ^^ the fairies, or the power to command 

Dimmishing the ... 

useless and evil Spirits, or not to begin a journey 
hannfui wants, ^j^ Friday, would be harmful because 
such wants are desires to prevent injury from, or 
be helped by, things which do not exist. Only 
those wants which the universe as it is may some- 
how satisfy are worth keeping. 

The chief aims of education with respect to the 
improvement of our wants are, then, to cultivate 
good will to men and the higher or impersonal or 
unselfish pleasures, and to get rid of irrational 
wants — wants not fitted to the world in which we 
live. 

Having taught himself to want the 

The means . .° ° 

of satisfying right things, man has to teach himself 
wants. hovTto secure them. Knowledge of 

the world of things and men, skill in managing 
its forces, habits and ideals of perseverance, 
thoroughness, accuracy, self-control, open-mind- 
edness, and the like, with bodily and mental 
health, are the chief elements which human na- 
ture has to cultivate in itself to this end. Men 
must either master the world in which they live 
or adapt themselves to it. To get on with it— that 
is, to satisfy their wants in and by it— they have 
to know it. They must also know themselves — 
the laws of their own nature — so as to cooperate 
to avoid waste and frustration. Moreover, just 
as one man singly must be patient, careful, ready 



14 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

to learn and reasonable if he is to get the best for 
himself out of life, so all men together cannot get 
what they want merely by claiming it, but must 
train themselves in the intellectual virtues which 
give knowledge and power. Health they must 
have not only for its own sake as one of man's 
surest satisfiers, but also because it is so com- 
monly a prerequisite to effective management of 
oneself, other men and the forces of nature. 
„ , No one is compelled by any inner 

Narrow and , ^ ... 

unjust aims necessity to accept as his aim in edu- 
for education. ^^^:^^^ himself or his fellow-men, the 

improvement and satisfaction of human wants — 
the cultivation of a good will, impersonal pleas- 
ures, knowledge of things and men, habits of 
open-mindedness, and physical and mental effi- 
ciency. And only the best individuals do accept 
these aims. Fagin tried to debase Oliver's 
wants and to satisfy his own at the cost of every 
one else's. Manufacturers may try to fit the chil- 
dren of a community to be nothing save efficient 
workmen. Baptists may plan their schools in 
utter defiance of Methodist or Presbyterian 
wants. A parent may count the satisfaction of 
his child's vanity above the satisfaction of a hun- 
dred other children's rights. 

Social pressure is required to prevent folly and 
injustice in education as elsewhere. Fagin can, 
if he likes, consider no wants save his own, but all 
men acting together can, if they like, hang him 
therefor. Parents may, if they like, consider no 



IMPROVING AND SATISFYING WANTS 1 5 



wants saye their child's, but other famihes can 
have mat child expelled from the school, or the 
parents from the community. Manufacturers can 
vote to take money from high schools for trade- 
schools, but others vote also. The state can sup- 
press sectarian schools altogether if it thinks that 
an unfair discrimination amongst wants is made 
by them. 

The aims which the schools of the present serve 
thus represent a conflict of wants, some of them 
very bad wants. A father can get almost the 
worst possible education for his son by paying 
enough for it ! Some school-masters use their 
pupils habitually as objects for futile domineer- 
ing. Some trade and professional schools outrage 
common honesty in their pretensions. We all 
tend to wish our pupils to do us credit more than 
strict justice would allow. It is only in propor- 
tion as all men together learn the wisdom of 
cooperating to make the best out of the world for 
all men that the improvement of wants will be a 
general aim in practice, or the satisfaction of the 
wants of the various classes of men will be 
equitable. 

The reader himself may choose, if he will, to 
educate children so that they will be better able 
to get ahead of others in struggles for power and 
gross sensory pleasures, or so that they will 
gratify selfish parental pride. And if the world 
at large is foolish enough to permit him to do so 
and pay him therefor, he may be in a sense ex- 



l6 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

cusable. But in so far as his own life is ruled by 
reason and the good will, he will choose rather to 
give the world, so far as he can, what reason and 
justice would decree for its total satisfaction. 

§ 5. Ultimate and Proximate Aims 

The attainment of the ultimate, 

The need of , . . , ,. • ,. 

particularized general aims of education implies 

aims in often the attainment of numerous 

particularized aims. Thus the cultiva- 
tion of the higher or impersonal pleasures com- 
prises the cultivation of habits of good reading, 
rational curiosity, experimentation with natural 
phenomena, the appreciation of the fine arts, and 
the like. These ultimate aims also imply the 
prior attainment of subsidiary aims. Thus, to 
secure the impersonal pleasure of good reading, 
the ability to read and knowledge of what is good 
reading must be secured. To take another illus- 
tration, the ultimate aim in teaching chemistry to 
high-school pupils should be to cultivate various 
intellectual pleasures and to fit the students to 
control nature in the service of human welfare. 
But the immediate or proximate aim may well be 
to get them to know just this particular body of 
facts and to acquire just this particular set of 
habits of thinking. A teacher of chemistry who 
thought vaguely of the general end of the teach- 
ing of science might well be doing far less to at- 
tain it than one who thought of the direct 



ULTIMATE AND PROXIMATE AIMS 1/ 

purpose of teaching fifty sets of facts and form- 
ing a score of simple habits. 

The proximate or direct or pre- 
Their variety. ... . , 

requisite aims of education are prac- 
tically infinite in number and of very great 
variety. The particular changes to be made in an 
orphan boy, of thirteen, blind, in New York City, 
in order most to improve and satisfy human 
wants will not be the same as those to be made in 
a girl of eighteen, without any sense defects, liv- 
ing in a good home in Japan. To attain the ulti- 
mate aims best, the immediate aims may need to 
be varied to suit differences in sex, race, age, 
previous training and circumstances. To lead this 
boy to read Scott's novels instead of Old Sleuth's 
stories ; to teach this girl how to sew ; to root out 
the habit of bullying from John's make-up ; to 
prepare this class to study medicine — these are 
samples of the millions of aims we have actually 
before us in the concrete work of education.* 

A complete theory of education would give an 
account of every single item of all the countless 
changes and conditions involved in the progress 
from what people now are to what we wish to 
make them — beings with good wants which life 

* It is of no consequence whether we call these changes, 
which are the intermediate steps between people as we find 
them and the desired condition of a world of people with 
noble wants all being satisfied, ends or means, except for 
the convenience of our thinking. When we think of one 
of them in and of itself, we shall think of it as desirable, 
that is, as an end or aim ; when we think of it as pro- 
ductive of something else, we shall think of it as a means. 



l8 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

is satisfying for them all. It would tell just what 
to aim at in each stage of the education of every 
individual. 

Such an account obviously cannot be given 
here. But certain of the aims that have been 
ranked as the most important prerequisites to the 
improvement and satisfaction of human wants, 
or even as themselves the ultimate ends of educa- 
tion, need at least some consideration. These are, 
especially, Happiness, Utility, Service, Morality, 
Complete Living or the Perfection of All of Each 
Man's Powers, Natural Development, Knowl- 
edge, Discipline, Culture and Skill. It is useful 
to consider the worth of each of these proposed 
aims as it would be judged by an impartial 
thinker in the light of its effect in improving and 
satisfying the wants of all men. For, by doing 
so, one can escape from any inadequate and un- 
just opinions which he may have absorbed from 
unreasoned customs, and can practice himself for 
testing other proposed aims rigidly by their prob- 
able effects upon the world's welfare. 



CHAPTER III 

The Aims of Education (concluded) 

§ 6. Happiness 

It is a paradox in educational theory that al- 
though everybody admits that the happiness of the 

^ . . world is an important ultimate aim, 

Prejudices ^ 

against attempts to make schools minister at 

happiness. ^|| directly to the happiness of schol- 
ars are often decried as undignified, 'soft 
pedagogy,' trifling with the serious work of edu- 
cation. To give them habits that will make them 
happy when they are forty, is allowable, even 
desirable, but to make them happy while they are 
in school is treated as a sentimental weakness. 

But certainly if the direct present happiness of 
children does not conflict with the ultimate ends 
of education, it is wholly desirable, and even if it 
does conflict somewhat, it has a right to be put in 
the balance against future goods and chosen if it 
outweighs them. It would be the acme of wicked 
folly if we denied little children happiness for no 
purpose. And it would be a brutal consequence 
of adult control of education if we failed to give 
children their kind of happiness merely because, 
as adults, we did not ourselves value it as highly 
as their happiness when old. Yet, just this folly 

19 



20 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

and this brutal inability to appreciate values 
which we do not ourselves enjoy, have in the past 
had vast influence in deciding the character of 
school work, and even now are at work in many 
homes and class-rooms. 

Happiness may be given at too great a cost, and 
immediate happiness alone would be a wretched 
substitute for a well-balanced educational aim. 
But immediate happiness should be one fraction 
of that aim. Happiness is not a fiend to be 
exorcised. The thwarting of every natural im- 
pulse and the deprivation of every cherished joy 
are not necessary means of grace. In fact, if we 
free ourselves from our adult tendency to think 
of what is good for us as adults, and consider how 
cheaply innocent happiness can be given to the 
young, and consider also that frequently (not 
always, of course) the childish likes and dislikes 
are as good guides to later welfare as our ar- 
tificial prescriptions are, we shall make happiness 
at the time by no means a small fraction of the 
aim of school education. 

Misunder- One's own happiness is often best 

standings. attained by not seeking it; happiness 
for others in the long run is often best attained 
by denying them some tempting opportunity of 
the moment ; some causes of individual happiness 
are very dangerous to the happiness of all. Over- 
impressed by these three facts, some stern souls 
have declared it cheap and ignoble to emphasize 



HAPPINESS 21 

happiness as an aim of education. But what they 
are really objecting to is selfishness in over- 
weighting one's own claims to happiness and 
stupidity in the means taken to get happiness for 
all. They object to emphasizing happiness be- 
cause they believe that by belittling it, mankind 
will get more of it. 

In the days of our forefathers, when the mis- 
eries of war, famine, injury and pestilence seemed 
irremediable and inevitable, even the wisest men 
could not hope for much happiness for mankind 
in this world. So they urged the importance of 
educating man to despise happiness. 

Their very spirit, however, under present con- 
ditions, makes the wise man despise an idle 
resignation to causes of unhappiness which mod- 
ern science can control. Since victory over 
disease, pain and deprivation is possible by 
knowledge, the thing to despise is ignorance. 

The apparent disagreements about happiness 
as an aim, then, in the main reduce to conflicts 
about the chances of attaining it and the relative 
value of present and deferred happiness. As an 
ultimate aim in one form or another it is accepted 
by all, provided it is possible of attainment. 



22 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

§7. Utility 

Another aim which has been often treated un- 
justly by educational theories and practices is 
Utility. It has been unfashionable, 
!l°taip'er"ect particularly in high schools and col- 
measure of leges, to teach anything because it has 
a sure utility to the world measured 
by a money-price. 'Bread and butter studies' is 
the contemptuous name which such have re- 
ceived. 

It is true that the money-price which an act or 
quality of mind or body brings in the world is 
not a right measure of its real value to the world. 
For instance, the discovery of truth and the bear- 
ing of worthy children, the two things most es- 
sential to the world's welfare, are, as a rule, not 
paid for at all. A writer of advertisements is 
paid more than a poet; and a crafty trader in 
soap more than the best physician. But it is also 
true that in many cases the money-price paid is a 
symptom and a partir' neasare of real worth. 
The graduate who has learned nothing for which 
the world will pay may in a .few rare cases be a 
great scientist or poet or social reformer, but he 
will far more often be a mere incompetent. 

Any practical issue involving the choice or re- 
jection of some feature of education because of 
its utility will be settled properly if the principles 
stated in the rest of this section are kept in mind. 



UTILITY / 23 

The mere fact that the world pays a money- 
price for a quahty is nothing against that quahty. 

„ ^ ^ The abihty to make a really valuable 

But not ... . 

opposed to invention is not less worthy of culti- 

reai value. vation, now that there are patent- 
laws allowing the inventor to reap the profit, than 
it was when the profits fell to others. Milton's 
Paradise Lost would be the same if he had been 
paid ninety thousand dollars instead of ninety. 

It is only because people in general are stupid, 
and because the great benefactors of mankind do 
not drive hard bargains, that the really valuable 
service is ill paid. It is because society at large 
does not know what is good for it and because 
scientific men do not extort what they might for 
their wares that society pays the inventor and 
advertiser of a patent medicine a hundred times 
more than the discoverers of the cause and pre- 
vention of yellow fever. The more rational 
human beings become, the more will the money- 
price approximate the real value, in cases where 
the thing can be bo'Jgh^ and sold at all. 
utiutyand ^ cdntra^. s also often drawn be- 

cuiture. tween the 'bread and butter' studies 

and those which ;ive culture and refinement. 
This is unjust to both sides. Culture and refine- 
ment are not good because they are the marks of 
an idler — of one who does not share in the world's 
productive labor. They have a far different war- 
rant from that. Much less are the bread and 
butter studies bad because they are for the great 



24 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

majority, the toilers, those whose talents and 
opportunities do not suffice to win them an easy 
or bountiful living. It is just because the bread 
and butter studies make the struggle for bare 
existence less intense and exacting and dull that 
their value is real and great. It is, moreover, 
precisely by their aid that those who would other- 
wise be unskilled slaves to daily necessity are 
given some chance for culture and refinement. 

Another unwise contrast is that between cer- 
tain forms of education commonly called utili- 
tarian, such as instruction in agriculture, in trades 
and industries or in the technical and scientific 
professions, on the one hand, and certain forms 
of education commonly called non-utilitarian or 
cultural, such as the study of the classical and 
modern languages in high schools, or the courses 
in art, music and manners in girls' boarding- 
schools. To call a thing utilitarian or non-utili- 
tarian does not make it so. The study of 
agriculture may demand and foster as intellectual 
interests as does the study of poetry. That the 
individual earns his living by it may be a minor 
matter. The scientific professions need be no 
more subdued to dollars and cents than the 
profession of literary man or painter. The lan- 
guages of the high school are very often out-and- 
out utilitarian, namely, in cases where the method 
of earning a livelihood — for instance, teaching — 
demands a high-school graduation. The art and 
music and manners of the finishing school are in- 



UTILITY 25 

tended precisely to get the girl such a livelihood 
as her social class requires by getting her a hus- 
band. 
y The best arguments alleged for sus- 

X The proper . . . . , , . 

meaning of picion of money-paid results from 

utmtyas education are: — First, people may be 

an aim. 

more or less trusted to get without 
special care from schools that which will bring a 
money-price ; consequently the schools may bet- 
ter give their energy to other aims. Second, the 
things done for a money-price are not so good as 
those done for certain other motives. 

There is a truth at the basis of each of these 
arguments. A school should do more than give 
the world what the majority of men already want 
and are ready to pay for. It should improve as 
well as satisfy their wants, and should be more 
far-sighted and unerring in its opinions of what 
will satisfy their wants than men in general are. 
In the case of the first argument, however, it must 
be noted that experience has again and again 
proved that what is left to private enterprise in 
education will be done for somebody's private ad- 
vantage rather than for the public weal. People 
may be trusted to try to get what education they 
need to secure a money reward, but they may also 
be trusted to blunder, to be cheated and to pursue 
short-sighted policies, in many such cases. Boys 
and girls need the help of schools to be taught 
even in cases where it is to their selfish pecuniary 
advantage to learn. 



26 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

Of the other reason for suspicion, it may be 
said that it is a reason for suspicion only, not for 
rejection. What is needed is discrimination. 
We would not teach clever methods of adultera- 
tion in a trade-school for grocers' clerks : we 
would teach methods of keeping food-stuffs fresh 
and free from dirt. In both cases the knowledge 
would bring a money-price. In the latter it would 
also be of real value to the world at large. 

The one best reason for a frank acceptance 
of training for wage-earning as an aim of the 
schools is that for a large number of children the 
possibility of being a great benefactor of human- 
ity, as teacher, physician, moral leader, or the 
like, is nil. The kinds of work which they can 
do are limited to the kinds for which the world 
does pay. If one restricted their education to 
preparation for the loftier vocations, where the 
money-price is not the motive or the measure of 
the service, one would be giving them an educa- 
tion unfitted to their capacities and to what the 
world needs of them. 

To sum up the whole matter of education for 
wage-earning, one might say, *'The aim of educa- 
tion is not to fit people to get a living, but to fit 
them to live. Fitting them to get a living is, 
however, one part of fitting them to live. For 
many pupils it is a large part." 



SERVICE 27 

§ 8. Service 

It is a shame that the word utility should have 
been so constantly used as a synonym for 'useful 
in the common sense/ 'exchangeable 
of useful for a money-price.' For in its other 

service. sense, as the opposite of uselessness, 

it describes one of the most important aims 
of school education. The word now used instead 
of utility to give this meaning of 'not wasteful/ 
'giving somebody something he needs/ is Ser- 
vice. When we mean that education should aim 
to make people useful in this wide sense, we 
nowadays say that education 'should fit them for 
service.' 

The worst error that is at all commonly made 
about the aim of education is to regard it as a 
means of putting one in a position where others 
have to work for him, and he not for others. That 
in the past 'the better classes' should have been 
in many mouths a name for those who do little 
and receive much is a sad commentary on the lack 
of rationality and justice in human life. The 
parent to whom the school is primarily a means 
of giving his children an advantage over others 
from whom their superior training enables them 
to exact service without equal return, absolutely 
misconceives the aim of public education. What 
we ought to master is the forces of nature, not our 
fellow-men. With them we should cooperate. 



28 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

We should make use of nature and be useful to 
men. The ideal life is one of work and recreation 
both enjoyed ; the successful man is happy in his 
work and wants it. Only an immoral and per- 
verse education puts anybody above labor. 
Varieties of What service people shall be edu- 

service. cated to perform is a less easy ques- 

tion. What seems to be of service may, in the 
long run, be a waste. What seems like indul- 
gence may turn out to be of the utmost value. 
Joseph Henry's experimenting with electric cur- 
rents probably seemed to many of the hard- 
headed men of his day a display of useless 
scholarship, or even a self-indulgence in intel- 
lectual play; but the results of his intellectual 
play are now every day replacing the manual 
labor of hundreds of thousands of men. Educa- 
tion for service makes one think of teaching 
pupils to work and to be expert in some profes- 
sion or trade ; but perhaps the best education of 
children for service would be healthy play in the 
open air, and the practice of right habits of eat- 
ing, sleeping and avoiding weakening diseases. 
Teaching girls to build a fire will seem highly 
serviceable to most of my readers, but if we 
should all come to use only electric stoves, it 
might be as purely academic a feat as parsing 
Latin sentences ! 

What will be an education for service for one 
person may be for waste in the case of another. 
Chopping wood ten hours a day would be a crime 



MORALITY 29 

for a boy who might be an expert electrical en- 
gineer. For one child, the most useful life may 
be as the administrator of the fortune he inherits. 
His brother may be a pauper living at the ex- 
pense of his parents unless he works at some 
simple manual labor. Education must prepare 
all men for mutual aid, each to cooperate in the 
way that he best can. 

§ 9. Morality 

Morality in the broad sense is simply such 
thought and action as promote the improvement 
and satisfaction of human wants. The 'right' 
thing to do in any case is the thing which a man 
who could foresee all the consequences of all 
acts, and who considered fairly the welfare of all 
men, would in that case choose. The aims of 
education as a whole are identical with those of 
morality. 

Usefulness or service is one great feature of 
morality. The substitution of the impersonal 
pleasures for the proprietary pleasures and for 
the still more selfish and gross forms of indul- 
gence, is another. So far as it can properly do 
so, the school should give time and energy to 
morality in the narrower sense of the cultivation 
of the good will, and of all the specific habits of 
performing right actions, such as honesty, cour- 
age, or cleanliness, and of avoiding wrong ones, 
such as cruelty and injustice. 

So long, however, as the school has only very 



30 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

partial control over pupils' lives, and for a limited 
time, so long as it can provide only one teacher 
for thirty or forty taught, and so long 
biiityofthe as it has SO many other things to do, 
school. -^ must be expected to assume less 

responsibility than the home for many of these 
attitudes and habits. It would, in fact, be pre- 
sumptuous for any institution to expect, not only 
to inform a child's mind, but also to remake his 
conduct — at an expense of twenty-five or thirty 
dollars a year ! 

In so far as the school is given the facilities — 
in so far as it becomes social settlement, employ- 
ment bureau, mother's helper, institutional church 
and the like — in so far it should increasingly aim 
to control the pupil's future in matters of conduct 
directly as well as by control of his intellect, 
tastes and general work in life. 

The aim should be to develop positive rather 
than negative morality, the presence of actual 
good works rather than the absence of wrong- 
doing. It is better for the school to teach a boy 
to earn money honestly than merely not to steal ; 
better to teach him to plant a school garden and 
tend it than merely not to cut his initials on his 
desk ; better to teach him to help younger children 
with their work and play than merely not to tease 
them. It is, what the school gets boys and girls 
to do, not what it keeps them from doing, that 
counts most for morality. 



PERFECTIONISM 3 1 



§ 10. Perfectionism 

A generation ago one of the most popular state- 
ments of the aim of education was 'The Perfec- 
tion of All One's Powers,' or, in Her- 

Vagueand ' ' 

inadequate as bert Spencer's words, 'Complete Liv- 
a complete aim. jj^^ » j^^^^ statements always needed 

qualification. For it is not desirable that life 
should complete itself by having all possible va- 
rieties of envy, jealousy and cruelty; and it is 
certain that some features of the Hfe-process are 
more desirable than others. Completeness had to 
be interpreted as the fulfillment of certain se- 
lected features which could work together har- 
moniously,—th2it is, without sacrificing worthy 
wants. Obviously, no one would advocate per- 
fecting the power to worry or despair. Since 
certain powers conflict with others, it was neces- 
sary to change the phrasing to 'harmonious de- 
velopment' or the like. 

Specialization ^Ut even if the misleading of 'corn- 

is necessary, plete' and the vagueness of 'perfec- 
tion' are prevented by qualifying statements, the 
doctrine itself — that education's business is to 
make the best possible specimen of humanity out 
of each man— is faulty. The aim of life is not to 
stock the world as a museum with perfected 
specimens for man or deity to contemplate. It is 
to make them all together an organized force for 



32 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

the welfare of the group. Powers are not for 
possession and display, but for use. This requires 
specialization rather than general perfection. 
Men have to live together and depend one upon 
another, not each trying to be the best possible 
creature in all ways, but each being taught to 
perform, and take pleasure in, those services 
which it is for the common good that he should 
excel in. Nor is it desirable, even from the 
point of view of individuals taken singly, that 
education should develop every man in all vir- 
tues. Each individual, by sex, race, hereditary 
equipment and the circumstances of time and 
place in which he is born, is made likely to meet 
certain situations rather than others during life, 
and it is to be competent and happy in those 
situations that he particularly needs to be taught. 
It would be wasteful to train the Jews and the 
Negroes identically. It would have been stupid 
to have perfected Pasteur's powers to drive a 
good bargain, or Darwin's powers as a public 
speaker, or Aristotle's powers as a gardener. Per- 
fecting the power to shoot with bow and arrow 
is unimportant in America now for the same rea- 
son that it was important four hundred years ago. 
The doctrine of individual perfection is inade- 
quate because it gives an excuse for the too com- 
mon tendency of men to educate themselves for 
competitive display instead of cooperative work, 
because it opposes the specialization which is 



PERFECTIONISM 33 

necessary for mutual aid, and because it neglects 
the fact that education beyond certain fundamen- 
tals should narrow itself to fit any given man for 
a certain probable course of life, not for all life's 
possibilities. 

Perfectionism of individuals, one at 

And will be , . .- 

more so in a time, grows less signincant as an 
the future. ^jj^j j^ proportion as more knowledge 
is discovered, as the world's work is more di- 
vided, and as education is for a wider group. 
Even to-day such an ideal for the education of the 
three quarters of a million children in New York 
City's schools seems a little absurd. Many of 
them early show special talents to which it is for 
the common good and their personal happiness 
that other powers should be sacrificed. Most of 
them have some weakness which it would be folly 
to try to remedy. Efficiency in service grows 
more significant as we see more clearly the 
world's needs and how to meet them. Not long 
ago the best a man could do for the world was to 
be the best possible man himself and then do 
what he felt like doing. This is still true enough 
to leave a solid foundation for the perfectionist 
aim; but every decade it becomes more possible 
for a special line of action to be chosen before- 
hand for an individual with a very high probabil- 
ity that, if he prepares himself properly, he will 
by that career be of sure value to himself and to 
the world. 



34 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

§11. Natural Development 

The causation of changes in a man's intellect 
and character from infancy on may be divided 
between the forces of growth from within and the 
forces of nurture from without. Some theorists 
have been prone to regard the inner growth as all 
desirable, and the nurture from without as un- 
warranted interference. Nature, they say, is 
surely right ; man's attempts to improve on nature 
are likely to be wrong. The aim of education, 
they think, is identical with the end-result of un- 
aided and unchecked natural evolution; what 
zvould be if the inner springs of development were 
left to fulfill their course, is what ought to he— 
the best that can be. 

Such doctrines of the superiority of the un- 
learned to the learned, of the products of nature 
to the products of human control over nature, of 
the inner impulsion to the outer direction, may be 
useful as rebukes to the neglect of man's original 
endowments and to an over-puritanic distrust of 
nature. They did, as a matter of history, go with 
a more humane and sympathetic allowance for 
the inborn tendencies of childhood. But they are 
so obviously wrong as general theories of the aim 
of education, that even their strongest supporters 
always abandon them in practice. 

Their logical consequence for practice would 
be the abandonment of all education. The inner 
impulses should be left alone. If human control 



NATURAL DEVELOPMENT 35 

over nature is mischievous, it should retire from 
the field. Arranging some automatic equivalent 
for manna, the rising generation should be left 
to grow up undisturbed by houses, books, tools, 
the example or advice of their elders and all other 
products of human art ! The result of such con- 
fidence in natural development alone- can be pre- 
dicted with surety. It would be no Eden of happy 
innocence and active intellectual advance, but a 
return to the brutishness of the human race some 
hundred thousand years ago. 

So in practice these theories always become lit- 
tle more than a protest against forcing the results 
of civilization upon children too rapidly and 
against neglecting the instincts and capacities 
present as a gift from nature upon which any wise 
education must build. Such a protest is valuable. 
The perpetuation and satisfaction of the worthy 
wants in man's inborn equipment are as desirable 
as the creation of new ones. 

§ 12. Knowledge 

In the work of making use of the forces and 
laws of nature to satisfy human wants, the main 
—almost the only— cause of success is knowledge 
of natural forces and laws. In the work of im- 
proving our own wants an important cause of 
success is knowledge of the forces and laws of 
human nature. 

So it is one great aim of all education, and the 



36 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

special aim assigned by society to school educa- 
tion, to increase the sum of knowledge, to put all 
men in possession of it, each in possession of 
those portions which it is best for the common 
weal for him to know, and to teach each man to 
apply this knowledge to the conduct of life. 

Knowledge should not be given for 

Knowledge of ..-r ^, • r 

how to use display, nor to gratify the craving for 

knowledge. personal superiority, but for use. It 
should be given in such arrangements that the 
separate items of it will work together, not as a( 
pedantic jumble. But it is no proper criticism of 
knowledge as an aim of education to show the 
faults of selfish culture or pedantry. Knowledge 
itself is the cure for whatever evils knowledge 
causes; for others it is not to blame. If mean 
men are unwilling, and stupid men are unable, to 
use knowledge for welfare, the defect is not in 
knowledge. 

Knowledge Doubling one's power to get and to 

versus power, usc knowledge is doubtless worth far 
more than doubling one's knowledge. Knowing 
how to study is, in this sense, better than knowing 
other facts ; and knowing how to apply all the 
knowledge one has is, in this sense, better than 
having more. But the contrast in words implies 
an opposition that may not really exist. One cer- 
tainly rarely loses in intellectual power by getting 
knowledge. Indeed, an excellent rule for study 
is 'So study that you get knowledge,' and an 
excellent means to gain power in applying facts is 



KNOWLEDGE 37 

to learn some other facts about them. The oppo- 
sition is really between haphazard, unrelated, 
verbal knowledge of details and selective, or- 
dered, applicable knowledge of principles. The 
facts really contrasted are the inferior and the 
superior varieties of knowledge, or the inferior 
and superior varieties of intellectual power. 

The superior varieties are better to get when 
they can be got equally well. Unfortunately they 
rarely can. They demand superior original ca- 
pacity or vastly more time ; and education, at the 
best, has often to be contented with giving de- 
tailed, piecemeal knowledge, knowing that full 
use of it will not be made. It is often a case of 
choosing half the loaf. 

The increase The sum of knowledge of nature 

of knowledge, and of man is increased directly by 
the intellectual labor of a few exceptionally gifted 
men and women. Probably not one in a hundred 
of the pupils who enter our schools could, even 
with the most advantageous training, discover 
new truth — add to the world's intellectual capital. 
But the work of the one in a hundred, or in a 
hundred thousand, means an enrichment of the 
world, a higher percentage of satisfied wants, for 
ever after. To discover such a one, to prepare 
him to do the work and to give him the oppor- 
tunity to do it, is an important aim of education 
— as important, perhaps, as the diffusion of 
knowledge among a thousand others. 

The early diagnosis of the capacity to advance 



38 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

knowledge, and the preparation of individuals 
possessing it for their proper work in spite of the 
accidents of poverty, lack of appreciation and 
lack of stimulus, can be managed better by the 
school than by any other agency and should be a 
recognized aim of school education. 

It may be asserted that this capacity may 
be trusted to display itself and make its own way 
and find its own reward. But the assertion is as 
false as it is true. We may trust that great 
capacity will do its work for the world with half 
a chance, but we may also trust that it will do 
more or better work with a full chance and that 
our efforts may occasionally rescue a fine ability 
from not having any chance. Nothing is more 
irrational in education than for schools to do 
nothing where a fair amount is done without ef- 
fort on our part. It is just in those cases where 
much is given already that our more is most fruit- 
ful. A fine capacity gets along to some extent 
without education's help, but at the same time 
education is most profitable of all when spent 
upon a fine capacity. 

The diffusion Once discovered, knowledge is rela- 
of knowledge, tively easily transmitted. That coal 
will probably be found in certain rocks, and that 
it gives heat by burning, can be easily learned by 
many after some one person knows it. That 
boiling water will destroy its power to give the 
drinker typhoid fever is now learnable by almost 
any one, though millions upon millions of men 



KNOWLEDGE 39 

were unable to discover the fact. So, though the 
discovery of truth is perhaps the more useful, its 
diffusion is a much more frequent aim. 

It is only by ignorance or forgetf ulness of what 
man owes to the knowledge thus given to him 
that any one can resist a holy enthusiasm in the 
spread of knowledge. Consider the miseries re- 
moved and satisfactions created by the spread of 
one small fraction of knowledge — preventive medi- 
cine— to one small group of men ! Cholera, small- 
pox and the plague are thereby exterminated. The 
end of yellow fever, malaria and tuberculosis in 
a country becomes simply a matter of dollars and 
cents. Deaths from wounds, child-birth and 
minor surgical operations dwindle to rarities. 
Consider the fears and suffering that have been 
undergone on account of purely imaginary goods 
and evils, whose tyranny over human happiness 
mere knowledge removes ! Ghosts, evil spirits, 
witches and demons made the life of many primi- 
tive peoples an almost incessant fear, and took 
tithes in labor and goods that could have added a 
large increment to human comforts. 

Morality itself, though often contrasted with 
or set apart from knowledge, is, except for the 
good will and certain other noble and humane 
qualities of character and temperament, a crea- 
tion of knowledge. It is chiefly knowledge that 
saves the mother of to-day from throwing her 
baby to an idol, the consumptive from poisoning 
his neighbors, or the ruler from ruining his 



40 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

country. Many of the greatest disasters have 
been innocent in intent. 

It is because we are so used to their benefits, 
that we fail to note the magnificence of the gift 
by schools in the mere knowledge of reading, 
measuring, computing, physics, chemistry, botany, 
engineering, medicine and the like. If they did 
nothing but give this knowledge, they would still 
be the best investment for welfare that man has 
yet found. 

The distribution Not all knowledge can be given to 
of knowledge, all men. Who should have this or 
that fact in his possession is to be decided by 
what he can do with it for the improvement and 
satisfaction of his own and other men's wants. 
Many men need to know how to read, count and 
keep clean ; very few need to know the names of 
the Pharaohs in order, or the distance of Sirius 
from Arcturus. It would be wasteful for a man 
of a certain original nature and training to be 
taught to manipulate logarithms, and still more 
wasteful for a man of a certain other nature and 
training not to be. Here, as everywhere, the 
material— that is, the persons to be educated — 
decide in part what the proximate aims of educa- 
tion should be. 

Reason has thus a very complex and exacting 
problem in distributing knowledge so that it will 
do the most service. The final answer to the 
problem can come only from elaborate and in- 
genious study. But some common blunders may 



KNOWLEDGE 4I 

be noted here. The first, which may be called the 
error of unreasoning seal, is to try to distribute 
whatever knowledge one possesses to whomever 
one meets. Some teachers, notably young men 
and women fresh from successful study of some 
special group of facts, try to produce duplicates 
of their knowledge in all their students. Such 
zeal, though in many ways a fine and useful im- 
pulse, is necessarily wasteful. 

The second, which may be called the error of 
inertia, is to continue the wide distribution of 
certain facts long after more serviceable facts are 
at hand. Thus the problems of digging wells and 
building stone walls are retained throughout the 
schools of a community like the city of New 
York or the State of Massachusetts, though per- 
haps not one in a thousand of the children will 
ever meet them again. So also the simple facts 
of the causation of disease by bacilli and protozoa 
and thei'r prevention by simple sanitary measures 
have not yet wrested space from the far less in- 
structive anatomy, physiology and dietetics of 
elementary text-books on health. 

The third, which may be called the error of 
imitation, is to add to the course of study more 
and more of the same sort of thing rather than 
some more desirable knowledge of a different 
sort. Thus, when the length of schooling was 
quadrupled, more and more arithmetic or pseudo- 
arithmetic was added to the course of study, 
though other knowledge was clearly of more 



42 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

value than the manipulations of greatest common 
divisor, least common multiple, square root, cube 
root and proportion, or the definitions of broker- 
age, taxes and bank discount. 

The fourth, which may be called the error of 
Puritanism, is to prefer for any individual the 
varieties of knowledge which he by nature 
avoids, the doctrine being that what knowledge 
interests him he will get by himself. Experience 
has proved that, with certain exceptions, the dis- 
tribution of knowledge in accordance with inter- 
est is the better plan. 

§ 13. Mental Discipline 

The notion of mental discipline has to be con- 
sidered in connection with the nature of the per- 
sons to be educated and with the means and meth- 
ods used as well as in connection with the aims of 
education, and cannot be treated fully at this 
point. The term is also used in many ways, of 
which I shall take only the most instructive one. 
As an aim, mental discipline is best used to mean 
the increase of a person's general powers to re- 
spond well in thought and action and feeling. It 
is thus contrasted with particular knowledge, par- 
ticular powers, particular skill, particular desires 
and aversions, and the like. If we contrast a 
general faculty of reasoning with particular pow- 
ers of inference about geometrical facts or lin- 
guistic facts or botanical facts— if we contrast a 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE 43 

general power to attend with particular habits 
of attention to books, class-room instruction or 
professional tasks— we may call the improvement 
of the former in each case a gain in general 
mental discipline and the latter a gain in special 
habits. Other things being equal, the former will 
obviously be better worth aiming at than the 
latter. 

A more instructive way to put the issue is to 
consider intellectual and moral life as the oper- 
ation of a series of abilities, or functions, or ten- 
dencies to respond to certain situations so as to 
attain certain ends, and to consider further the 
relations of these functions. For example, con- 
sider the following :— 

a. The ability to add 9 and 8. The ability to 

add 4 and 5. 

b. The ability to add 39 and 8. The ability to 

add 4 and 65. 

c. The ability to add integers. 

d. The ability to add common and decimal 

fractions and integers. 

e. The ability to add algebraically. 
/. The ability to add. 

g. The ability to compute. 

h. The ability to be accurate in all numerical 

thinking. 
i. The ability to be accurate in all thinking. 

There is in this case a hierarchy of abilities, 
the latter ones including the former. A teacher 



44 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

who secured only the abilities a, b and c might be 
said to be a retail teacher. One who, by some 
magic, could once for all get h or i, might be 
called a wholesale teacher. 

Now the doctrine that mental discipline should 
be a prominent aim means substantially that edu- 
cation should aim at getting mental abilities 
wholesale, in large lots, by discovering some es- 
sential element that is in many of them and teach- 
ing that par excellence. It is a doctrine of 
expediency, declaring, for example, that to im- 
prove the general ability to be accurate in all 
thinking by even so little as one tenth of one per 
cent, would be better than to improve the ability to 
add integers alone by a hundred per cent. This is, 
of course, true. For life offers many thousand 
times as many chances to be accurate in one way 
or another as it offers to be accurate in adding 
integers. Suppose that, by one method of teach- 
ing column addition, a teacher could improve 
general accuracy a tenth of one per cent, and by 
another., requiring the same time and energy, he 
could improve general accuracy only a twentieth 
of one per cent. Then, even if the second method 
was ten times as effective for addition itself, the 
former would be far preferable, for a gain of 
.0005 in accuracy in everything would doubtless 
more than balance a gain of 10.0000 in addition 
of integers alone. 

This argument is weakened somewhat in pro- 
portion as education knows beforehand the career 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE 45 

probable for any child. For, in such cases, gen- 
eral accuracy, or attentiveness, or ability to rea- 
son, would not have its full value. If one knew 
that a boy was to be an accountant, accuracy in 
writing a history of Japan, or playing the violin, 
or in making even stitches, might well be sacri- 
ficed to accuracy with numerical data alone. But 
the expediency, as a general rule, of aiming at 
improving the features common to many abilities 
rather than those confined to a few is self-evi- 
dent, provided other things are equal. That is the 
truth for which mental discipline as an educa- 
tional aim should stand. 



§ 14. Culture 

Every educated person thinks he knows what 
culture means— and commonly thinks that he has 
Its many ^* ' ^^^ there would Idc great varia- 
meanings. tion in such Opinions and possessions. 
To some it means a body of knowledge and habits 
which distinguishes its possessor as a member of 
the leisure class, ornaments his intellect much as 
tailor-made clothes adorn his body, and satisfies 
chiefly the craving to display one's superiority to 
others. In this sense it is a conventional orna- 
ment, much less obnoxious to the democratic 
spirit than outriders, diamonds and certain other 
testimonials to freedom from productive labor, 
but not fit for emphasis as an aim of education. 

To others it means knowledge of human affairs 



46 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

contrasted with science and technolog}^, which are 
taken to be the knowledge of things. Thus his- 
tory, Hterature, the fine arts, psychology, sociology 
and government would often be regarded as 
much more cultural than physics, chemistry and 
geology. There is, however, nothing but con- 
fusion to be got from such an application of the 
word. To others it means the study of rather 
pleasant concrete details contrasted with 'dis- 
cipline,' the rather severe training in general 
principles. Thus many would think of learning 
the names of the stars, collecting flowers and 
translating Vergil as more cultural than working 
out mathematical astronomy, comparative anat- 
omy or the theory of the Greek moods and tenses. 
According to another common notion, culture is 
knowledge and appreciation of what is beautiful 
and fine. Such knowledge, which is one of the 
chief impersonal pleasures, is, of course, one 
fraction of the total aim of education. Accord- 
ing to another common notion, culture is a body 
of knowledge and habits and interests such as 
prepares a man to perform, not the special work 
of any trade or profession, but the general work 
of citizen, parent, friend and human being. 'Cul- 
ture' is thus a name for the broad knowledge 
useful for being a man or woman in general, as 
opposed to 'technical training' for being a phy- 
sician, carpenter, chemist or statesman. Culture 
in this sense is a very large fraction of the total 
aim of education. 



CULTURE 47 

If the word is to be retained in educational dis- 
cussions at all, it should perhaps be defined as 
Its best training for the impersonal pleasures 

definition. — the unselfish satisfactions which in- 
volve no necessary deprivation for any other 
man. We need some term to include these equi- 
table, stainless wants — appreciation of beauty in 
nature and art, the observer's interest in human 
life, the sense of humor, knowledge, joy in get- 
ting and giving it, and the rest — whose increase 
was seen to be one main element of the aim of 
education. If 'Culture' could be relieved of its 
connections with display, uselessness, lack of dis- 
ciplinary value and lack of scientific solidity, and 
used simply as the name for the gratifications 
which in no wise deprive, it would mean to all 
what it doubtless does mean to its wise advocates. 

§ 15. Skill 

No one would assert that skill is the total aim, 
and no one would deny that it is a fraction of the 
aim, of education. The chief facts about it 
which are Hkely to pass unnoticed are:— its ap- 
propriateness where the eflFort to give knowledge 
is relatively wasteful, and its service as an im- 
personal pleasure. Skill, as in the trades or 
household arts, can be got, even in high degree, 
by boys and girls who, by lack of capacity or in- 
terest or both, can get little knowledge of general 
principles. So, in proportion as schools are at- 



48 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

tended by a wider and wider selection and retain 
the unscholarly types till sixteen or eighteen 
instead of till twelve or fourteen, skill becomes 
properly a larger and larger factor in their proxi- 
mate aims. Skill may also be, for almost all in- 
dividuals to some extent, and for some sorts of 
individuals to a very great extent, a source of 
impersonal pleasure. The taste for workman- 
ship — the impulse to do the job as it should be 
done — making a first-rate product by fit means— 
is one of the most easily developed, but also one 
of the best, virtues. It is commonly more truly 
cultural or refining than an interest in correct 
manners, speech, or opinions about the fine arts, 
because it is commonly more sincere and less 
tainted with ostentation. 



§ 16. Custom versus Reason in the Choice 
of Aims 

In the choice of educational aims and in the 
interpretation of happiness, morality, culture and 
other words describing them, there is an incessant 
warfare between custom and reason. Custom — 
the human activities which we are bred into by 
'use and wont* — is strong because man tends to 
be comfortable in doing and thinking as he has 
done. Breaking habits is even harder for a nation 
than for an individual, because all the men of the 
nation can rarely be stirred to act together. 
Moreover, the men and women in power are the 



CUSTOM AND REASON 49 

older generation to whom the custom is endeared 
by long familiarity. Reason — the decisions that 
are made impartially in view of all the facts ob- 
tainable — may, and sometimes does, justify the 
customs of use and wont, but it is no respecter of 
custom for custom's sake, and often rejects an 
educational aim of long standing. Since the 
world is now so rapidly changing, customary 
aims, even if suitable when they originated, may 
soon become unreasonable. So criticism of tra- 
dition in the light of reason is always necessary. 

Tradition and ^^^ "^^^^ ^^<=^ ^^^^ 'everybody' is 
custom are agreed that education should do this 
untrustworthy. ^^ ^^^^ jg ^^^^^ ^^ guarantee. 'Every- 
body' is often wrong. 'Everybody' was agreed 
a hundred years ago that the aims of education 
for women were simply and solely to make them 
competent managers of cooking, preserving, spin- 
ning, weaving, entertaining and the like, and that 
it would be wrong to educate them in the sciences, 
arts and professions. 'Everybody' was agreed 
two hundred years ago that the aims of education 
were to teach boys who inherited wealth and 
power to live up to the traditional notion of a 
gentleman, and to teach boys who were born in 
poverty and serfdom to live down to the tradi- 
tional notion of a workingman. Men who wished 
to enjoy the privileges which chance or their an- 
cestors gave them invented the useful doctrine 
that God had called them to the state of leisure 
and power and had called those others to drudge 



50 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

and obey. None believed this doctrine more 
steadfastly than those who suffered most from it. 
Against such customary aims, reason, seeing 
things as they are and weighing the wants of all 
men impartially in terms of the common good, 
has fought and is winning. Its long conflicts 
have taught it a wise distrust of those educational 
aims of the past which have been preserved by 
sheer inertia or by the selfish zeal of those who 
unfairly profited by them. Reason makes war 
equally on mere novelty, mere change, mere dis- 
turbance of customs ; but from such fanaticism of 
careless radicals in education it has less to fear. 

Two of the most suspicious relics 
Samples of 
custom's of past customs m the educational 

errors. ^jj^g ^f to-day are the glorification of 

the ornamental and the misinterpretation of ex- 
cellence as the possession of advantages over 
other men. 

As a matter of custom, the activi- 
ties of the leisure classes have always 
been devoted in large measure to showing that 
they were leisure classes. They have spent 
enormous sums of money just to show that 
they had money to spend. They have worked 
hard to acquire useless accomplishments so as to 
make it clear that they did not need to work at 
all ! They educated their children in large meas- 
ure with the aim of displaying to an envious and 
admiring world that their children did not need to 
be of any use. Now we have tended to ape the 



CUSTOM AND REASON 5 1 

leisure classes in education as in everything else, 
and so to retain, under the excusing pretense of 
falsely defined 'culture' or 'discipline' or 
'knowledge/ the aim of sheer uselessness for 
display's sake. 

Relative The ordinary man does not much 

superiority. appreciate the welfare which he has 
or the improvement which he makes, in and for 
itself. As has been noted, he wants rather to be 
better off than some of those about him or to 
make an advance beyond some one who is now 
ahead. The work of men in business, women in 
the home and children in schools is too com- 
monly to do, not what will make them better oft' 
than they were before, but what will make them 
better off than their rivals. The most frequent 
race in life has been to get ahead of somebody 
rather than to get ahead in and for itself. The 
common interpretation of excellence is excelling 
another, leaving him below or behind. Now this 
custom of judging by relative superiority has 
been carried over from the individual's struggle 
for advancement to the notions of the aims of 
public education. But it is meaningless there. It 
makes no difference to the world who is the most 
gifted one of ten million children — who gains 
most, next, third and least. To the world the 
only matter of importance is that the gains should 
be great. The race of civilization and welfare is 
not run to see who can go furthest, but to make 
all go as far as may be. 



chapter iv 

The Material for Education: General 
Facts and Laws 

The aim of education is, we have seen, to 
change human beings for the better, so that they 
Education and ^ill have more humane and useful 
thesciencesof wants and be more able to satisfy 
uman na ure. ^^^^^ Human individuals, especially 
the young, are the material for education; and 
knowledge of human nature is necessary if edu- 
cational changes are to be made economically, 
securely and without secondary ill effects. 

For this knowledge of the material which it 
works upon and which it aims to change into 
nobler and happier natures, education has re- 
course to physiology, psychology, sociology and 
all the other sciences of man, and to whatever 
facts concerning the production and prevention 
of changes in human nature educational experi- 
ence itself has demonstrated. Nothing human 
should be alien to the student of education, 
though he will be specially interested in: — first, 
the original nature of man, the tendencies which 
human beings have apart from all education, and 
second, the general laws of learning, the ways in 

52 



SITUATION AND RESPONSE 53 

which men's original tendencies are modified. He 
will also be more interested in man's intellectual 
and moral nature than in his physical or chemical 
nature, since the former is more amenable to 
education and changes in it are, as a rule, more 
valuable for human welfare. 

Many volumes larger than this would not suf- 
fice to report the knowledge of human nature that 
is relevant to education. The psychology of a 
single ten-year-old boy would probably involve as 
much subject-matter for investigation as the 
astronomy of the solar system or the geology of 
a continent. And although biology, anthropol- 
ogy, psychology and sociology are but in their 
beginnings, they have already far more informa- 
tion to ofTer students of education than even a 
gifted thinker could master in many years. I 
shall try simply to introduce the reader to the 
spirit and some of the results of scientific studies 
of the material upon which education works.* 



§ 17. Situation and Response as the Elements in 
Human Behavior 

The total state of affairs by which an animal is 
at any given time influenced is called the stimulus 

* The reader may well combine with the necessarily su- 
perficial introduction given here, a study of a sample topic, 
using, say, one of the following: — How We Think, by 
J. Dewey ; Mental Discipline, by W. H. Heck ; The Psy- 
chology and Pedagogy of Reading, by E. B. Huey ; Individ- 
uality, by E. L. Thorndike. 



54 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

or 'situation.' What he thinks or feels or does, 
as a result of this total state of affairs acting 
Situation and ^P^" his nature, is called his total re- 
response action or 'response' to it. Thus, to 
defined. ^^^ situation of being in such and such 
a place, so light, so warm, with such and such walls 
and furniture around him, such and such clothes 
upon him, and these words before his eyes, the 
reader responds by: — sitting still; moving and 
stopping his eyes so as to get an adequate reading 
impression from the words ; knowing their mean- 
ing; continuing to live, breathe, digest and grow; 
and by many other minor processes of body and 
mind. If one were to be exact, the situation or 
total state of affairs acting upon a human being 
would have to be defined as all the universe at 
that moment save him. For, directly or indi- 
rectly, it all might count in determining his re- 
sponse. But for ordinary purposes it is allowable 
to leave out of consideration those features— such 
as the movement of Sirius, the temperature of 
Mars, the birth of an earthworm miles away, 
and the like— which have no appreciable effect on 
him. To be exact one would also need to bear in 
mind that one situation does not come, cause its 
response, and then be followed by another sepa- 
rate one, making an Si— Ri, S2—R2, S3— R3, 
order, but that the situations come as the con- 
tinuous flow of a stream and that the responses 
bloom out side by side or overlapping, as well as 
one by one in distinct sequence. But it is useful 



SITUATION AND RESPONSE 55 

for science to abstract out definable fragments of 
a human life and consider them one by one, each 
in connection with the situation which is its ante- 
cedent. 

It is even more useful to analyze out some cle- 
ment of the total situation and ascertain what 
element of the response is due to it, or to seek 
what features must be present in a situation to 
ensure the production of a certain element in the 
total response. Thus one asks what the response 
of an animal to a stern look, or to a small object 
running away, or to the problem ^)4^-%=?' 
on a blackboard, will be, irrespective of the other 
concomitant features of the situation. Or one 
seeks some elements which will produce responses 
of attentiveness to the teacher, or memory of the 
meaning of Anna virumque, or writing 'cat' 
legibly, without special interest in what other 
effects may be produced by other accompaniments 
of these elements. 

Theuseof ^ man's life may then be consid- 

thesetwo ered as a series of situations or states 
of affairs which act upon him and a 
series of responses of thought, feeling or action 
which he makes to these situations^ His response 
in each case changes the situation, or changes 
him, or does both. Any fact about human nature 
may then be put in the form, "To the situation 
xyz, individual a will respond by ABC." Any 
problem of education may be put in the form: — 
"Given a certain desired change in a man, what 



56 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

situation shall we create to produce it, either 
directly or by the response which it provokes 
from him?" 

Their value There are two reasons why a stu- 

for thought dent of education should think of 
and practice, i^^urnan \{{q j^ terms of a series of re- 
sponses to a series of situations. The terms 
economize thought in the sciences of man some- 
what as the terms 'cause* and 'effect' do in the 
sciences of things.* They also lead to two very 
simple but also very useful laws for educational 
theory and practice. These are : — 

1. Consider any situation before letting it act 
upon a pupil. 

2. Consider the response which is desired, be- 
fore devising a situation to evoke it. 

More briefly : — 

1. Know what the situation is which confronts 
the pupil. 

2. Know what the response is which you wish 
to secure. 

Consider What these rules mean and that 

the situation, teachers need to use them will both be 
seen best by means of cases where they were not 
followed. The following are samples of the fre- 
quent neglect of the first rule: — A favorite 
method of teaching spelling years ago was to 



* The situation, if taken together with the nature of the 
individual concerned, may be thought of as the cause ; the 
response, if taken together with the change in the outside 
world, may be thought of as the effect. 



SITUATION AND RESPONSE 57 

have passages like the one below copied with the 
misspellings corrected. The notion was that the 
pupil would think of the correct spelling and 
write it and thereby learn it. 



If Hope be a star that would leed us astray, 
And "deceiveth the heart," as the aged ones 

preech. 
Yet 't was mercy that gave it to beakon our way, 
Tho' its halo ilumes where we never may reach. 
Tho' friendship but flitt like a metior gleem, 
Tho' it bursts like a morn-light buble of dew, 
Tho' it passes away like a lief on the streem, 
Yet *t is bliss while we fancy the vizion is true. 



The method was a bad one and should not have 
been acceptable to anybody who considered what 
situation thereby confronted the pupil. He was 
put face to face with strangely seductive misspell- 
ings which could not but make a strong impres- 
sion upon him while he examined them to puzzle 
out what the words were, and even while he 
was trying to think what the correct spellings 
might be. 

In arguing for written rather than oral quizzes 
it has been assumed that the issue is solely be- 
tween the saving of time for the class when all are 
tested together and the expense of time for the 
teacher who must correct the papers. But at 
least two elements of the situation of great im- 
portance are overlooked by this assumption. 



58 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

Recitation by other pupils makes the class hour 
sociable and so interesting, especially for children 
under fifteen. The presence of the other pupils 
as listeners when one recites is a strong stimulus 
to achievement. For many pupils the desire to 
appear well before their classmates outweighs the 
desire to satisfy the teacher. Even graduate stu- 
dents in universities will in many cases confess 
that the absence of a definite showing of their 
knowledge before their peers in the classroom 
removes a strong motive for study. 

Consider what ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ what response you 
response seek to secure means substantially to 

know what you are trying to teach 
the pupil, it might seem too obvious a i-ule to be 
stated. But the fact is that we all tend to accept 
some vague verbal idea of what we are trying to 
teach pupils and by no means always think out 
just what response is to be sought. If we did, 
we should not make such mistakes as to sufifer 
pupils to learn to say a rule instead of to apply 
it, or to spell words which they will never use in 
writing,* or to teach 'carrying' in addition by 
a series of examples in which the number to be 

* Even our best present practice does not apply these 
simple rules. The spelling drills of a city commended for 
its superior wisdom in the teaching of spelling include in 
the case of the seventh and eighth grades such words as 
seraphs, valvular, guttural and promiscuous. The few chil- 
dren who need to know how to spell such words may best 
be left to learn them in the course of reading. The time 
should be spent on responses which there is some proba- 
bility that the majority of the pupils will be called upon 
to make. 



SITUATION AND RESPONSE 59 

carried is always one* The fact that people do 
think vaguely and verbally of teaching 'gram- 
mar' or 'spelling' or 'addition with carrying,' 
instead of realistically in terms of what the pupil 
is actually to be able to think and do, accounts 
for a large fraction of futile teaching. The first 
step in raising one's educational activities out of 
the bog of unintelligent imitations of current cus- 
toms to the level where reason can control them, 

* The result of using exclusively such examples as 







16 


12 


12 


28 


31 


17 


49 


14 


24 


23 


24 


17 


13 


41 



is that pupils form the bad habit of adding one to the 
second column, instead of adding the required number of 
tens, whatever it may be. The reason that would be as- 
signed for using at first examples with only one to be car- 
ried, and later examples with two or three to be carried, 
is presumably that the graded set of responses is easier 
than those requisite when carrying with one, two, or three 
to be carried is taught at the start. But this is very doubt- 
ful. If the first examples in carrying were such as 

16 

16 17 18 

38 28 14 39 43 14 

27 35 35 29 17 19 

19 17 26 18 32 17 

the pupil would be led to think of 'carrying versus not 
carrying,' because he would be led to think of what to 
carry. The responses that express the habit, '10 or more, 
— / carry i if it is 10-19, 2 if it is 20^2g, s if it is 30-39,' 
may be formed with not much greater difficulty than those 
expressing the habit, '10 or more, — / carry i if it is 10-19/ 
And after the habit of carrying i is formed, the habit of 
carrying 2 or 3 appropriately is nearly as hard to form as 
the total correct habit. 



60 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

is to form the two habits of knowing the situa- 
tion which the pupil is responding to and know- 
ing the response which it is desirable to have him 
make. 

§ i8. Intellect and Character Are Due to 
Intelligible Causes 

No response of any human being occurs with- 
out some possibly discoverable cause; and no 
ii„«,-- situation exists whose effect could not 

nature is with sufficient knowledge be pre- 

®* dieted. Things do not happen by 
mere chance in human life any more than in the 
fall of an apple or in an eclipse of the moon. The 
same situation acting on the same individual will 
produce, always and inevitably, the same re- 
sponse. If on different occasions it seems to 
produce different responses, it is because the in- 
dividual has changed in the meantime and is not 
the same creature that he was. At the bottom of 
the endless variety of human nature and circum- 
stance there are laws which act invariably and 
make possible the control of human education 
and progress by reason. So the general rule of 
reason applies to education : To produce a desired 
effect, find its cause and put that in action. 

, This rule, too, may seem obvious 

Its management , i t ^t i 

requires insight, and commonplace. In truth, how- 

not chance ever, a very srreat amount of educa- 
impulses. . ./ o 

tional effort has been and is haphaz- 
ard, the result of whatever impulses the educator 
by nature and habit has in each particular emer- 



NATURAL CAUSATION OF BEHAVIOR 6l 

gency rather than the result of a rational plan to 
produce a certain change by the most probably 
available causes. Thus, if a child repeatedly fails 
to understand a statement or enact an order, the 
parent will often repeat the identical statement or 
order but in a very loud voice, even though the 
use of reason would have shown that the child 
heard the words perfectly. And when this addi- 
tion of more intensity fails, the parent often adds 
still more, confusion and terror being the re- 
sponse in the child. By nature and previous 
habit the parent feels like yelling the words that 
have been misunderstood, as a man feels like 
shaking his fist at the rain that is spoiling his 
crops. 

The commonest error of the gifted scholar, in- 
experienced in teaching, is to expect pupils to 
know what they have been told. But telling is 
not teaching. The expression of the facts that 
are in one's mind is a natural impulse when one 
wishes others to know these facts, just as to 
cuddle and pat a sick child is a natural impulse. 
But telling a fact to a child may not cure his ig- 
norance of it any more than patting him will cure 
his scarlet fever. 

Human nature in general is so complex and so 
little known, and human individuals are so va- 
rious in their natures and change so much and 
so subtly, from day to day, that one is tempted to 
give up the effort to understand them and adopt 
aimlessly whatever treatment he happens to feel 
like using. Even superior teachers would, have 



62 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

to confess that again and again they say this or 
ask that or order the other, not because they 
know any good reason why the statement, ques- 
tion or command should produce the desired re- 
sponse, but just because they do not know what 
to do and because that particular statement or 
question happens to come to mind. To thus act 
with no reason may, under certain circumstances, 
be excusable, but such teaching by the push of 
instinct or pull of chance is essentially irrational 
and inferior. There is always a reason for every 
fact in human behavior. There is, for every 
emergency, something which is better to do than 
something else ; and there should be always a 
better guide than one's haphazard impulses. 

The practical consequence of the fact that 
human nature and behavior are knowable, the 
same effect being always due to the same cause, 
should then be to encourage insight, experiment, 
and reason in man's dealings with himself. Sci- 
entific spirit and method will be rewarded in edu- 
cation as in the physical sciences. 

§ 19. The Physiological Basis of Human Nature 

The original nature of a man's intellect and 
character, their growth with age and their modi- 
fications by training, all happen incon- 

InteUectand . T, , . . 

character nection With conditions and changes 
depend on jj^ ^j^^ man's bodilv organization. The 

bodily organs. . . 

organ for behavior is the neuro-mus- 
cular system. This consists essentially of an 



PHYSIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 63 

arrangement for being sensitive to situations, for 
making movements, and for producing a given 
movement in response to one situation rather than 
another, such as is shown in Figure i. 
It is essentially made up of : — 

1. Organs for bringing the situation to bear on 
the animal,— such as the lens of the eye, or the 
funnel, drum, malleus, incus and stapes of the 
ear. 

2. Organs for being sensitive to special feat- 
ures of situations, — such as the rods and cones in 
the retina, which are very easily aroused to action 
or disturbed by vibrations of the ether; or the 
endings of certain neurones in the membrane of 
the nose, which are very easily disturbed by the 
presence of certain chemicals in contact with 
them. 

3. Organs for conducting a disturbance or 
neurone-action so caused to various parts of the 
body. These are the great majority of the neu- 
rones. 

4. Organs for using a neurone-action, so caused 
and conducted to some muscle, to make that 
muscle contract. These are the end-plates of the 
neurones in the muscles. 

5. The muscles, glands and other bodily struc- 
tures whose action can be influenced by neurone- 
action conducted to them. 

The arrangement shown schematically . in 
Figure I includes in reality some eleven thou- 
sand millions of neurones or nerve-cells or nerve 



64 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

elements, each of which acts by conducting a 
stimulus acting on one of its ends to the other 
Especiauyon ^^^' ^ach end is often a very com- 
the neurones, plex affair, capable of receiving 
stimuli from many other neurones and discharg- 
ing a stimulus to many others. They are all con- 
ductors, and most of them can conduct from and 
to various places. 

The diagram of Figure i would then have to 
be made enormously complex to duplicate man's 
system for being stimulated by situations, and for 
connecting these stimuli with each other and with 
appropriate responses. Also many of the places 
where the discharging end of one neurone or ele- 
ment in the connecting system is next to the re- 
ceiving end of another neurone (which are called 
the synapses) cannot properly be represented in 
any one drawing. For they change. They are 
modified in the course of education so that it be- 
comes easier or harder for neurone number one 
to discharge into the receiving end of neurone 
number two. The physiological basis of educa- 
tion is the modifiability of the synapses betzveen 
neurones. 

Each man has in the nervous system and its 
accessories a multitude of chains linking the 
events in the outside world to the acts which he 
performs— mechanisms for controlling his own 
behavior to fit outside circumstances. We can 
think of this mechanism as a threefold system of 
receptors, effectors and connectors— for being 



PHYSIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 



65 



Receiving * 

Apparatus 



fn n n n n 



Connecting •< 
Apparatus 



A 



V 



Effecting 
Apparatus 



Fig. I. 






the 



1. Apparatus for being sensitive to situations; 
sense-organs and first sensory neurones. 

2. Apparatus for producing one rather than another 
response to a situation ; the associative neurones, 

3. Apparatus for making movements; the last motor 
neurones, end-plates and muscle-fibers. 



66 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

sensitive to situations, making responses and con- 
necting this or that response with this or that 
situation. 
_ ,. , Education makes chane^es in a 

Know and need ^ ° 

man's bodily child's intellect and character by 
mechanism. tnaking changes in this mechanism, 
and has to pay heed to its condition in order to 
avoid injury and waste. We have the simple rule, 
"Know and heed the mechanism by which the 
pupil responds to situations." 

This is clear enough to anybody in the case of 
gross, impressive facts — such as blindness, or 
such defect in the receptors as makes a child in- 
sensitive to light; paralysis, or such defect in 
some connector or effector as makes a muscle 
incapable of contraction ; and idiocy, or such 
defect in the connectors as makes them exces- 
sively sluggish in forming the new connections 
which correspond to learning. But it has not 
been followed as it should be throughout. Chil- 
dren have in fact been treated as stupid who were 
simply more than half blind, as inattentive when 
they were really deaf, as lazy and perverse when 
they needed food and rest. Fine sewing and writ- 
ing have been exacted from children seven or eight 
years old whose connectors and effectors could 
achieve it only at the cost of painful and exhaust- 
ing strain. The old idea that a human being is a 
magical essence which can know and do irrespec- 
tive of the body's condition, if it only chooses, 
still lingers in many school practices. 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 6/ 

Even when the mechanism is known, it is often 
too little cared for. For example, the hardest 
work the eyes are called upon to do in the ordi- 
nary primary curriculum is copying numbers 
from book or blackboard. This is needless and 
wasteful, since such examples can be given out in 
well-printed sheets ready to be done, with a great 
gain in efficiency as well as protection of the 
eyes. Again, the eyes' hardest task in the study 
of a foreign language is hunting for words in the 
vocabulary and dictionary. This, too, is in the 
main a waste, since, with properly graded lessons 
in speaking, reading, learning words and phrases 
and translating, a pupil would not have so to hunt 
out more than one fifth of the words he now does 
and would learn the language in far less time as 
well. 

§ 20. Individual Differences and their Causes 

Behavior is due in part to original individual 
differences in nature. Men are, it is true, more 
f he varieties ^^^^ ^"^ another in intellect, character 
(Of human and skill than they are like dogs or 
J^ "'®* horses. But the likenesses which let 

men be grouped together as one species are con- 
sistent with differences which make no one in- 
dividual the exact duplicate of another save by 
chance, and which separate some men from some 
others by enormous gaps. Education thus has, in 
connection with any given change to be made in 
children, not one problem but many. The best 



68 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

method for one cannot be the best for all. There 
is not one mind reproduced in millions of copies, 
for all of which one rule will suffice; there are 
many differing minds, each of which needs, for 
its adequate education, to be considered to some 
extent by itself. 

These original differences are due, 

Due to Btx. 

first, to sex. A child is, for example, 

by being a girl rather than a boy, likely to be more 
observant of small visual details, less often color- 
blind, less interested in things and their mechan- 
isms, more interested in people and their feelings, 
less given to pursuing, capturing and maltreating 
living things, and more given to nursing, com- 
forting and relieving them. It is no accident that 
girls learn to spell more easily, do better relatively 
in literature than in physics, and have driven men 
from the profession of nursing. 
To remote They are due, in the second place, 

ancestry. ^q remote ancestry or "race." The 
material furnished to education in the shape of 
Negrito children is not the same as that furnished 
by the Filipinos. A course of study fit for Jewish 
children would be far beyond the capacity of the 
so-called Pygmies. Far too little is known of 
original racial differences in intellectual and 
moral capacities, and the errors of educational 
practice have here commonly been to exaggerate 
differences that do exist and to imagine many that 
do not. But there are real differences of which 
education must take account. 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 69 

They are due, in the third place, to near an- 
cestry—to heredity in the popular sense. If one 
To near knew nothing whatever about two 

ancestry. pupils in a city's schools save that A 

was a twin of a boy who was in the top fifteenth 
of children of his age in intellect, while B was the 
twin of a boy who was in the bottom fifteenth, he 
could still be practically certain that A would be 
brighter than B, that A would in nineteen cases 
out of twenty be in the upper half of the class 
and that B would have the same probability of 
being in the lower half. One can apparently 
prophesy about as much concerning a pupil's rank 
in college from the rank his elder brother had in 
college as from his own rank in entrance exami- 
nations. Children "take after" their parents in 
energy, ability to learn, and other original mental 
traits to approximately the same extent as they 
do in form, features, or other original physical 
traits. 

To "chance" The germs which produce the next 
vanations. generation are not, however, identical 
even when from the same parent, so that indi- 
vidual differences in original nature exist within 
the same-sexed offspring of the same human pair. 
Such differences are due to the causes, mostly 
unknown, which make the germ-cells from the 
same parent vary, and which determine the effect 
of any given combination of male and female 
germ-cells. 

Education has to reckon not only with these 



70 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

original differences due to sex, race, near an- 
cestry and the variations in germs from the same 
To maturity Parent, but also with the differences 
and previous due to different degrees of maturity 
uca ion. ^^ growth, and those which previous 
education itself has caused. The treatment ap- 
propriate to one stage of mental growth — to one 
"age" of inner development — differs from that 
appropriate to an earlier or a later one. Children 
will thus learn to write more easily at seven than 
at four, and to dance more easily at twelve than 
at thirty-six. The wise future course of educa- 
tion will in every case depend upon what previous 
education there has been and what it has accom- 
plished. 

As a result of the differences originally present 
or produced by growth and training, education 
has to be specialized in means and methods. 
Many sorts of schools are needed, not only to 
prepare for different careers, but also to fit differ- 
ent natures. Within the same school and class, 
variations in the kind, amount, and quality of 
work demanded and in the help given are also 
necessary. The competent teacher expects va- 
riety in human beings and examines each pupil to 
learn what he really is and needs. From the 
variety of individual human wants education se- 
lects its aims, and to the variety of individual in- 
terests and capacities it fits its means and 
methods. 



chapter v 

The Material for Education : The Original 
Nature of Man 

The different original natures of men repre- 
sent variations around one central tendency 
Manas a or 'type/— the ordinary or average 

species. original nature of man as a species. 

Thus, though men vary notably in inborn ability 
to reason, their variations are around a central 
tendency, the average capacity of mankind to 
reason, which is clearly distinct from the average 
capacity of earthworms or caterpillars. Though, 
to the situation 'being alone in the dark,' differ- 
ent responses would be made by different infants, 
even though all had been treated alike, yet their 
responses would center about an average dis- 
tressed behavior, whereas deep-sea fish would 
respond to being alone in the dark with stolid 
equanimity. The original equipment of the cen- 
tral or average or typical human being consists, 
over and above his strictly physical, chemical and 
physiological nature, in tendencies to respond to 
certain situations by certain sensations, feelings 
and acts. These tendencies may be called the 
original mental make-up of man as a species. 

When the situation is simple, the response uni- 

71 



y2, THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

form and the connection between the two close 
and hard to modify, the tendency is usually called 
Reflexes ^ reflex. Thus, since the original 

instincts and make-up of man leads him to respond 
capacities. ^^ bright light entering the eye by con- 
tracting the pupil, doing so promptly and surely 
and rather unalterably, the tendency is called the 
pupillary reflex. When the situation is more 
complex, the response more variable and the con- 
nection between the two more easily modified, the 
tendency is called an instinct. Thus the tendency 
of man to respond to the situation — unfamiliar 
large animals approaching him rapidly with open 
jaws — by trembling, running and hiding, is called 
one of the instincts of fear. When the situation 
is very complex, the response very variable and 
the bond between them very modifiable, the words 
'capacity,' 'predisposition' and the like are often 
used instead of instinct. Thus the fact that man 
as a species by original nature has tendencies 
which, when the proper situations are provided, 
grow into thought, speech and music, would be ex- 
pressed by such terms as 'the capacity for reason- 
ing,* 'the predisposition toward articulation, imita- 
tion and the other factors in speech,' and 'musical 
capacity.' 

§ 21. Some Unlearned Tendencies of Man 

Man's equipment of reflexes, instincts and 
predispositions — that is, his original tendencies 
to respond to certain situations in certain ways 



UNLEARNED TENDENCIES 73 

apart from all education— cannot be fully or 
surely described. For we do not yet know just 
what in human life is to be credited to original 
nature, and what to nurture. Moreover, the pur- 
poses of this book justify an allotment of space 
to this topic sufficient only to present samples of 
a few of the facts which are known. The follow- 
ing inventory of the natural man— of man bereft 
of all education — can only roughly picture certain 
leading features in the material given by nature 
for education to work upon. 
Original To the situations — colored, glitter- 

attention. {^^g^ contrasting things (such as black 
on white, sour after sweet, and the like), moving 
things, blood, loud sounds, pain, human faces, 
gestures, sounds and movements, and all the situ- 
ations to which he has further original tendencies 
to respond (as by running away, pursuit, repul- 
sion and the like) — man responds originally by 
such movements or restraints from movement as 
let the situation produce a strong effect on his 
sense-organs. Thus he moves his eyes so that the 
light rays from the moving thing fall on the fovea 
or spot of clearest vision, or holds his head so 
that the sound reaches his ear in full force. 
The hunting Any not too large, too disgusting or 

instinct. |.QQ frightful object arouses the ten- 

dency to lay hold of it. If it at first evades seizure, B . y^ i-j 
the response of chasing it is evoked. Being 
started in the chase, man feels satisfied as he 
draws nearer and annoyed if he is outdistanced. 



74 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

Being within pouncing distance is responded to 
by pouncing upon the object. To the situation, 
its seizure, the responses are to choke and beat it 
until it is still, to exult and to rend it in pieces or 
drag it to one's habitation, according to its size 
and one's hunger. 

Under the conditions of civilized life few chil- 
dren ever display this sequence exactly as I have 
described it. Only disguised forms or shreds and 
tatters of man's original tendencies are permitted 
by the environment of to-day. But the behavior 
of boys in undirected outdoor play, the system- 
atized hunt of tag, football and other games, the 
forms taken by teasing and bullying, the prefer- 
ence for shooting at a living mark, the general 
passion of man to kill animals, and many other 
facts of life, prove that one of the human male's 
most favorite original occupations is direct, 
naked-handed hunting of beasts. 
Collecting and To the situation— ^a^t/y portable 
hoarding. objects which have excited the re- 
sponses of attention and possession — there is often 
the further response of hoarding. This, as a gen- 
eral tendency, is often killed off by the training 
life gives, but shows itself in reduced forms, in 
the collections of birds' eggs, tags, picture-cards 
and other objects whose service is simply to 
gratify the unreasoning tendency to collect. 
James reports that hardly a single person of a 
hundred questioned had not shown this tendency, 



UNLEARNED TENDENCIES 75 

and Burk found amongst over a thousand chil- 
dren six to seventeen years old less than ten per 
cent, who were not, at the time, making a collec- 
tion of some sort, and only two per cent, who said 
that they had never made any collections. 
Visual To an object that is not being re- 

expiorationand sponded to by disgusted avoidance, 
manipulation, r 1 • l 1 • ^.i 

tear, anger, lovmg behavior or other 
specific acts, man responds, so far as the object 
permits it, by moving his eyes so as to look it 
over, and by moving his arms and hands so as to 
hold it, turn it, roll it, drop it, pick it up, put it in 
the mouth, squeeze it, poke it, shove it away, pull 
it back, and so on through the long list of activi- 
ties that make up the indefatigable experimenta- 
tion of infancy. 

Manipulation includes the original basis of the 
tendencies commonly called, or rather miscalled, 
constructiveness and destructiveness. Man's 
original nature is innocent of creating and de- 
stroying, of changing an object for or against the 
welfare of the world. Rolling, turning, throwing 
down and picking up, putting together and pulling 
apart, digging holes, tearing books and building 
with blocks are all due to the same tendency. No 
one would think it wise to speak of separate ten- 
dencies to construct and to destroy the air in the 
sense of making, on the one hand, words and, on 
the other, mere mutterings and cooings. So one 
word, manipulation, best describes the manual 



76 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

responses out of which constructive and destruc- 
tive activities both develop. 

vocalization ^o the situation, being alive and 

and facial comfortable, the original response of 
expression. gxj^rgVmg, cooing, prattling, shouting 
and the like is made, especially if some return 
sounds are heard. In place of the limited reper- 
toire of cries, growls and the like which a dog or 
cat displays, the human animal makes sounds in- 
cluding all those used later in language, and many 
more. Meantime, he may smile, frown, grin, and 
contort his face in a multitude of twists and 
turns. 

Visual exploration, manipulation, vocalization 
and facial movements seem at first sight to be 
useless in comparison with such tendencies as: — 
to reach for, grasp and put in the mouth, to run 
and hide from a large strange animal, to throw 
out the arms when falling, or to cry when left 
alone in a strange place in the dark. We call them 
'play' as if they had not the serious value of the 
responses directly concerned in getting food or 
protection. But no instincts have surer utility 
than the apparently random voice, eye and finger 
plays. For the end of voice play is language; the 
ends of eye and finger play are knowledge and 
skill. In the long run the apparently random 
voice play is of far greater service to man than 
the special calls of hunger, pain, fright and relief ; 
and the puttering with eyes and fingers is of 
greater service than making specially adapted 



UNLEARNED TENDENCIES 'jy 

movements in flight, pursuit, attack, capture and 
eating. 

What is commonly called curiosity 
is the result of both original tenden- 
cies and acquired habits. Its original elements 
are: — Attention to novel objects and human be- 
havior, visual exploration and cautious approach, 
reaching, grasping and the food-testing responses, 
manipulation, and the enjoyment of sights, 
sounds, tastes, smells and other sensory facts for 
their own sake. 

This last element needs comment. Whereas a 
dog or cat cherishes sights, sounds and smells 
mainly for their service in connection with food, 
safety and the like, man enjoys the mere flow of 
mental life itself. Merely to hear, see and touch 
is, other things being equal, a source of satisfac- 
tion to him. His mind abhors a vacuum. Novel 
experiences are to him their own sufficient re- 
ward. 

General ^^* ^^^^ sensing things, but also ap- 

mentai preciating the connections of events, 

activity. jg intrinsically satisfying to man. A 

child likes not only to hear a whistle, but also to 
find the noise coming whenever he blows it. He 
likes to see a ball roll across the floor, but even 
more to have it roll after his act of throwing. 
'Tumbling blocks' are a delight; but 'blocks 
tumbling after a push' are an added delight. To 
blow, to throw and to push are satisfying as cases 
of instinctive manipulation ; to hear a whistle, see 



yS THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

a ball roll and see and hear blocks tumbling are 
satisfying as cases of the love of sensations for 
their own sake ; the added satisfyingness of 'blow 
— then a zvhistle comes/ 'throw — then it rolls/ 
'push them down — bang they go' involves an- 
other instinct. We may call it the instinct of 
'Pleasure at being a cause,' or of 'Mental Con- 
trol.' More exactly, it is the satisfyingness of 
the exercise of connections in the brain whereby 
doing something makes something happen. 

Now this tendency for the exercise of the con- 
necting or learning or habit-forming powers of 
man to be satisfying to him is of wide-spread 
influence. As soon as man gets the ability to have 
ideas and plans, he enjoys getting one idea from 
another, making a plan and having a result from 
it, and countless other cases of thinking some- 
thing — getting some result therefrom. When a 
man has acquired powers of intellect or skill it is 
often as instinctive or 'natural' for him to enjoy 
their unforced exercise as to enjoy food, sleep, or 
conquest. Other things being equal, mental ac- 
tivity is satisfying in and of itself. 
General ^ similar satisfaction attends any 

physical unforced exercise of the body. The 

ac mty. healthy child not only runs, jumps, 

climbs, pushes, pulls and the like, but also twists, 
wriggles, bends and contorts himself in move- 
ments that are devoid of any reference to food- 
getting, safety or other direct utilities. He puts 
his body into action for activity's own sake. 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS 79 

§ 22. The Social Instincts 

The tendencies so far described have been 
those out of which education has to build its 
edifice of habits of work and thought with ma- 
terial objects. The tendencies now to be described 
concern primarily man's responses to the situa- 
tions offered by the behavior of other men. 

Chief in importance for education among such 
social instincts are gregariousness, mastering and 
submissive behavior, responses to approval and 
scorn, rivalry, motherly behavior, kindliness, 
teasing and bullying, and pugnacity. 

Man responds to the mere presence 

Gregariousness. , . , . 

of human bemgs, other thmgs bemg 

equal, by a positive satisfaction. To their ab- 
sence he responds by discomfort and restlessness. 
McDougall has pointed out how influential this 
inborn interest is in our recreations. 

"In civilized communities we see evidence of 
the operation of this instinct on every hand. For 
all but a few exceptional, and generally highly 
cultivated persons the one essential of recreation 
is the being one of a crowd. The normal daily 
recreation of the populations of our towns is to 
go out in the evening and to walk up and down 
the streets in which the throng is densest — the 
Strand, Oxford Street, or the Old Kent Road; 
and the smallest occasion — a foreign prince driv- 
ing to a railway station or a Lord Mayor's Show 
— will line the streets for hours with many thou- 



8o THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

sands whose interest in the prince or the show 
alone would hardly lead them to take a dozen 
steps out of their way. On their few short holi- 
days the working classes rush together from town 
and country alike to those resorts in which they 
are assured of the presence of a large mass of 
their fellows."* 

The tendency shows itself equally in our re- 
ligious observances, in the preference for factory 
labor compared with domestic service, and in the 
acceptance by children of many discomforts for 
the sake of being together with other children in 
schools and in play. 

Mastery and There is, by original nature, a com- 

submission. pj^^ interplay of activities between one 
human being and another with whom he has to do, 
whereby, as a resulting stable equilibrium, one 
has the attitude of mastery and the other of sub- 
mission. This complex of activities and the 
resulting status of the two parties could be ade- 
quately described only at great length, since the 
size and sex of each party and the attendant 
circumstances all count in determining what hap- 
pens. But some main features of the tendencies 
can be outlined. 

When one boy is noticed by another, but with- 
out approving or submissive behavior, the former 
tends to respond by holding his head up and a 
little forward, staring at number two, continuing 
whatever he is doing somewhat more energetic- 

* Social Psychology, p. 86. 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS 8l 

ally, and making displays of strength. If number 
two continues his unapproving and unsubmissive 
notice, number one may approach him, looking 
him in the eyes, thrusting the head forward and 
perhaps nudging or shoving him. To submissive 
behavior on the part of number two at any stage, 
number one responds by satisfaction, swagger, 
strutting, and, perhaps, by kindly behavior. Sub- 
missive behavior consists in lowering the head 
and shoulders, averting the eyes, absence of all 
preparations for attack, a w^eakening of muscle- 
tonus, and hesitancy in movement. To counter- 
mastering behavior on the part of number two 
(as by glaring back, not giving way when pushed 
and the like) either number one becomes submis- 
sive himself or a conflict of looks, gestures, yells 
or actual fighting ensues until one or the other 
submits. 

To a human being much larger than himself, 
of angry or of mastering aspect, and to effectual 
physical restraint or punishment in spite of his 
struggles, a boy tends to respond by submissive 
behavior. Submissiveness to the kind of person 
to whom it is a natural response, may be entirely 
tolerable, though it lacks the richer joys of mas- 
tery. 

Such crude determinants of superiority and in- 
feriority, of who shall command and who obey, 
are of course greatly modified by early training, 
yet they remain, beneath more rational and hu- 
mane habits, to perplex the gentle, handicap the 



82 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

modest and peaceful, and make the maintenance 
of order in the school-room an art wherein the 
wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of 
the dove must often simulate the tiger's fearless 
readiness to attack. 

Approving and Smiles, admiring glances and shouts 
scornful are original responses to relief from 

°^' hunger, the abatement of fear, gor- 

geous display, acts of strength or daring, victory, 
female attractiveness and other impressive be- 
havior from which the onlooker does not suffer. 
Frowns, sounds expressive of disgust, sneers and 
hooting are among the original punishments of 
him who is empty-handed, deformed, craven or 
pusillanimous in his behavior, and of her who has 
no charm. Every child and man by original na- 
ture thus unconsciously weighs the merits of the 
natures and acts of those about him. In such 
crude appreciations our judgments of human 
worth have their source. 

To the situation, intimate approval, as by 
smiles, pats, admission to companionship and the 
like, from one to whom he has the inner response 
of submissiveness, and to the situation, humble 
approval, as by admiring glances, from all others, 
man responds originally by great satisfaction. 
The withdrawal of approving intercourse by 
masters, and looks of scorn and derision from 
anybody in turn originally provoke a discomfort 
that may strengthen to utter wretchedness. 

The reader will understand that the approval 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS 83 

and disapproval which are thus satisfying and 
annoying to the natural man are far from iden- 
tical in either case with the behavior which pro- 
ceeds from cultivated moral approbation and 
condemnation. The sickly frown of a Sunday- 
school teacher at her scholar's mischief may be 
prepotently an attention to him rather than to 
others, may contain a semi-envious recognition 
of him as a force to be reckoned with, and may 
even reveal a lurking admiration of his deviltry. 
It then may be instinctively accepted as approval. 
Emulation or When we have separated out from 
rivaiiy. ^j^g tendencies to be stimulated by the 

behavior of other men all the effects of training, 
we find left as their original roots two facts. 
First, a man engaged in attending to, reaching 
for, pursuing, fleeing from, attacking, or any 
other instinctive activity toward an object or per- 
son, acts more vigorously when other men are 
similarly engaged than when he is alone in re- 
sponding to the object in that way. Second, a 
man who fails in such an activity— who does not 
grasp the food, catch the prey or conquer the foe 
— feels more annoyed when another is similarly 
engaged than if he were alone ; if he succeeds his 
satisfaction is likewise increased. 

Such special tendencies to greater energy and 
keener zest in instinctive activities wherein one 
has the competition or cooperation of other men, 
develop quickly with training into a more or less 
general tendency to be spurred on by competition 



84 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

or cooperation in any activity, and by competition 
or cooperation thought of as well as directly felt. 
Often, as James says, *'We know that if we do 
not do the task someone else will do it and get 
the credit, so we do it." But the tendency is not at 
all general originally and never becomes entirely 
so. To get children to emulate the studiousness, 
helpfulness or modesty of a playmate is far 
harder than to get them to emulate his speed in 
running after a stray cat or his struggles to beat 
a rival football team. Emulation is easier to 
arouse along the line of originally competitive ac- 
tivities. 

Motherly Modern philanthropy and accept- 

behavior and ance of the brotherhood of man as a 
living creed rests at bottom on the 
original tendency, strongest by far in women, to 
hold, cuddle, enjoy the welfare of, and relieve the 
distress of, young and helpless human beings ; 
and upon a more diffused original kindliness to- 
ward all human kind. Amidst the somewhat 
brutal interplay of approval and scorn, mastery, 
submission and rivalry, fear and hate, from 
which justice comes only by the rational suppres- 
sion of first impulses, the maternal instinct stands 
out as a diviner element— a natural harmony 
whereby the good of one is the natural satisfac- 
tion of another— in which a man's own satisfac- 
tions first enlist as combatants for another's 
wants. 

All women possess from early childhood to 



THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS 85 

death some interest in human babies, being 
prompted by their instinctive behavior to sym- 
pathetic joy and rehef. With the changes that 
precede, accompany and follow child-birth these 
tendencies gain extraordinary power in attach- 
ment to a special object, and manifest themselves 
as the maternal instinct in the strict sense. But 
they act to some extent in childhood before this 
added stimulus comes, and during adult years in 
spite of its absence. Boys and men are not by 
nature so entirely lacking in mothering behavior 
as traditional opinions declare. To give a Httle 
child food, to smile sympathetically at its play and 
to drive off its enemies are perhaps as instinctive 
in the boy or man as the tendencies to clasp and 
fondle it are in the woman. 

The more diffuse kindliness, sympathy or pity 
consists, in the first place, of attentiveness to a 
human being manifestly hungry, frightened or in 
pain, and active measures to relieve him. In the 
second place is a positive satisfaction at, and ap- 
proval of, happy or contented behavior in other 
men. Even mean and cruel children may, when 
not in the hunting or angry attitude, be kindly in 
this second weaker sense. Superior children 
show it often. Healthy children are in fact en- 
dowed by nature with good-will to men, so far as 
is consistent with the attainment of their own 
selfish ends; and primitive races of men are 
usually similarly indulgent. 

As an original tendency in man, outright su- 



S6 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

pererogatory cruelty, beyond what he needs for 
self-preservation, is commonly the result of 
Teasing and thoughtlessness (as in anger) or of 
bullying. ^j^g direction of hunting behavior 

toward a human being. The latter case, com- 
bined with mastering behavior in the more brutal 
forms, gives the typical bullying which is per- 
haps the most detestable feature of boyhood. 

Much of the misery of the world has been due 
to the misdirection of the mastering and hunting 
instincts. Both are strong, and both are likely to 
operate crudely and to extremes. It is a bitter 
fact that apparently not two men in ten can be 
given unlimited powers as rulers, generals or 
school-masters without grave risk that they will 
abuse it by hounding those whom they happen to 
dislike or those whom public opinion puts in a 
class below man, to be hunted or driven. 

Some of man's original responses 
Imitation. 

to the behavior of other men are 

duplications in him of what he witnesses in them. 

Thus man smiles in a friendly way at a friendly 

smile, looks at what others are regarding, listens 

when those around him listen, follows a group 

who run in the same direction, makes off from 

the focus from which others are scattering, talks 

or prattles when others talk, ceases when they 

become silent, crouches when others crouch, 

chases, pounces on and rends what others are 

hunting, and grabs whatever object others reach 

for. This set of tendencies to respond as others 



ORIGINAL INTERESTS AND PLAY 87 

are responding is the original part of imitation. 
In addition the acts of other men and the prod- 
ucts of their acts are throughout life the sources 
of many of our ideas of what should be done and 
of how to do it, but this potency is better con- 
sidered under learning, since it is only in the 
course of experience that we come to use men 
thus as models and guides. 

Angry To the situation, being thwarted in 

behavior. fj^^ oiitcome of any original tendency 

(as by having that for which one reaches with- 
drawn, by being held when moved to get to a cer- 
tain spot, or by being robbed of an object cher- 
ished in possession), man responds by hitting, 
biting, kicking and otherwise attacking the 
thwarting person or object, or even anything 
which is near at hand. In the course of training, 
the tendency may connect with any situation 
which has this element of obstruction to one's 
activity, so that a collar that will not button may 
be glowered at or hurled across the room, and a 
book whose paradigms are not readily learned 
may be torn and trampled on. 

§ 23. Original Interests and Play 

Two important original tendencies remain to 
be listed which concern responses to both human 
beings and other objects in nature. The first is 
the tendency to feel satisfaction at and cherish 
certain conditions and to feel discomfort at and 



88 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

avoid others. The second is the vague group of 
tendencies called instinctive play. 
Original Mention has already often been 

satisfiers and made of the satisfyingness of certain 
annoyers. conditions. They have all been cases 

of the general rule that the exercise of any origi- 
nal tendency and the production by it of a state of 
affairs zi'hich permits the next step in the original wl 
series of responses to be exercised in its natural 
zvay, are satisfying. Thus, to rest after work, to 
eat when hungry and to chase the prey, are satis- 
fying because certain tendencies in readiness to 
act are thereby allowed to act. To draw nearer 
the prey as one runs and to have one's hand touch 
the attractive object one reaches for are thus 
satisfying because they are states of affairs which 
permit the next steps, of pouncing or grasping, to 
take place in their natural way. The rule is gen- 
eral. Even to run or crouch in fear is, so far as 
the running and crouching itself goes, satisfying, 
so that a man will often attack the one who stops 
his flight. To shriek and writhe in response to 
pain is originally more satisfying than to bear the 
pain in motionless silence. The original satisfiers, 
wants or interests of man equal the undisturbed 
exercise of his original tendencies, whatever 
these be. 

The original annoyers or discomforts are: — 
first, sensory pains from cuts, bruises, blows, 
burns, decayed teeth, indigestible food and the 
like; second, hunger, thirst and other depriva- 



ORIGINAL INTERESTS AND PLAY 89 

tions from what the body needs to keep it alive ; 
and, third, the thwarting of an original tendency 
which is ready to act. Only the third of these 
needs comment. Just as a tendency in readiness 
to act gives satisfaction if it does act, so it gives 
discomfort if it does not act. A man chasing the 
prey and being outdistanced by it is annoyed be- 
cause the next steps of pouncing and capture, 
which are in readiness in him, cannot be lived 
out. The child from whose reach an object is 
suddenly withdrawn is discomforted because the 
grasping response, all ready to act, is denied its 
adequate stimulus. Restraint of the free natural 
activities of the body and mind is as notable a 
source of misery as bodily injury or deprivation 
from food and safety. 

Not all the original tendencies of 
^* man are of immediate service in se- 

curing food or safety for the individual, or per- 
petuation for the species. Curious examination, 
manipulation, vocalization and experimentation 
with objects are, as was noted in describing them, 
play, in the ordinary sense of the word. Run- 
ning, jumping and throwing may occur when no 
bona fide prey is pursued. Fighting may be with- 
out any real issue of mastery. The responses 
made in anger may be made for fun. Children 
who are so fed, housed and protected as to be im- 
pelled by no lack of the necessities of life to go 
for, or flee from, anything or anybody, still main- 
tain vigorous activity in plays which contain in 



90 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

metamorphosed form the responses of hunting, 
hoarding, mastery and submission, flight and con- 
cealment, and other original behavior-series. 

So far of original playful behavior. To it are 
added, from the earliest years, activities suggested 
by the things and persons composing a child's en- 
vironment, so that playing cars, cook, sweep, 
automobile, and policeman soon seems as natural 
as waving sticks, grubbing holes, running and 
hiding. This learned play is influenced by the 
original tendencies, those suggestions from things 
and men being most readily adopted which are in 
the spirit of the inborn proclivities to manipula- 
tion, pursuit, fighting, caring for babies, and the 
like. 



§ 24. The Use of Unlearned Tendencies by 
Education 

Such is the original stuflF of human nature, out 
of which the circumstances of life and training 
They are its have fashioned each of us. As the 
raw material, potter must know his clay, the musi- 
cian his instrument or the general the raw re- 
cruits out of whom he hopes to make a dis- 
ciplined force, so education has to reckon with 
these unlearned tendencies. To change men's 
wants for the better, we must heed what condi- 
tions originally satisfy and annoy them, since the 
only way to create an interest is by grafting it on 
to one of the original satisfiers. To enable men 



THE USE OF INSTINCTS 9I 

to satisfy their wants more fully, the crude curi- 
osity, manipulation, experimentation and ir- 
rational interplay of fear, anger, rivalry, mas- 
tery, submission, cruelty and kindliness must be 
modified into useful, verified thought and equi- 
table acts. 

The task of education is to make the best use 
of this original fund of tendencies, eradicating its 
vicious elements, wasting the least possible of 
value that nature gives, and supplying at the most 
useful time the additions that are needed to im- 
prove and satisfy human wants. This task is 
complicated by the fact that original tendencies 
are often 'delayed' — that is, appear only when a 
certain stage of mental growth is reached— so 
that education has to wait perhaps longer than 
it wishes before it can count upon them. It is 
further complicated by their transitoriness. Many 
tendencies appear for a time, but wane if not 
given exercise and reward ; so that education has 
to strike while the iron is hot. If the response is 
sought too early, effort is wasted ; if it is sought 
too late, the effort may fail altogether. It is 
further complicated by the discords between the 
behavior to which original nature prompts and 
the behavior which the welfare of man in his 
present civilized state requires. Man's original 
equipment dates far back and adapts him, di- 
rectly, only for such a life as might be led by a 
family group of wild men among the brute forces 
of land, water, storm and sun, fruits and berries, 



92 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

animals and other family groups of wild men. 
But man has created a new world, in which his 
original nature is often at a loss and against 
which it often rebels. 

To be preserved, ^ome original tendencies should be 
destroyed or cherished almost as they are. Some 
^ ^ * must be rooted out of children — by 
withholding the situations that would call them 
forth so that they die a natural death from 
lack of exercise ; or by making their exercise re- 
sult in pain and discomfort; or by substituting 
desirable habits in place of them. The great 
majority of original tendencies, however, should 
neither be preserved in their exact original form, 
nor be altogether annihilated, but should be so 
modified and redirected as to further the im- 
provement and satisfaction of men's wants under 
the conditions of humane and rational living. 

Thus the indiscriminate manipulation of ob- 
jects is modified into instructive play with sand- 
piles, blocks or ball ; and later into the intelligent 
use of tools, pencil, pen, typewriter, engine, 
printing-press and the like. Thus the satisfying- 
ness which originally accompanies notice and ap- 
proval by anybody is redirected to form special 
attachments to the approval of parents, teachers, 
one's own higher nature, and heroes, living and 
dead, who are chosen as ideal judges. Thus the 
original incitement of 'another trying to get the 
food or victory or admiration which we crave' is 
replaced gradually by rivalry with others in all 



THE USE OF INSTINCTS 93 

work and play, then by rivalry with our own past 
records or with ideal standards. Thus out of 'col- 
lecting and hoarding at random whatever is handy 
and attractive to the crude interests in color, glit- 
ter and novelty,' habits of intelligent scientific 
collecting and arranging may be formed, and the 
interest in collecting may be made a stimulus 
to getting knowledge about the objects collected. 
Thus the original interests, the tendencies to be 
satisfied by and annoyed by, to like and dislike, 
are turned into acquired interests in efficient 
workmanship, kindly fellowship, the welfare of 
one's family, friends, community and nation, and 
finally into the love of truth, justice and the 
happiness of mankind as a whole. 
T« -« !»«+ *u^r^ It has been a common error in edu- 

To neglect them 

causes failure cation to try to make such changes all 
or waste. ^^ once— to demand rationality and 

morality offhand — to stick ideal considerations 
and motives into children in a few large doses — to 
expect them to work, study, be just and be wise 
because we tell them to. Nothing but harm comes 
from expecting such miracles. Little more is 
gained by telling a man to think, or to be ac- 
curate, or to have good taste, or to honor truth 
and justice, than by telling a tree to bear fruit, or 
a duck to keep out of the water. The eventual 
nature which is desired for man has to be built 
up from his original nature. 

The strengthening, weakening and redirecting 
of original nature begin soon after birth, so that 



94 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

by the time a child enters school he is already in 
many respects a product of our complex environ- 
ment of clothes, furniture, toys, tools, language, 
customs and ideas. School education starts from 
acquired as well as original tendencies. But the 
original roots of intellect, character and behavior 
are still potent. Education which works with 
rather than against them — which conserves their 
energy while modifying them into more desirable 
forms — will have a tremendous advantage. 
Merely to let children act out what they are to 
read and make what they are to understand — 
that is, to enlist their original tendencies to bodily 
activity and manipulation in the service of knowl- 
edge-getting—enormously facilitates school work. 
Recognition of the original strength, in boys, of 
the interest in things and their mechanisms, and 
of the original strength, in girls, of the interest 
in the thoughts and feelings of persons, will simi- 
larly increase the effectiveness of high-school 
management. The first necessity in education 
everywhere is to know what man will be and do 
apart from education. 



chapter vi 

The Material for Education : The Learning 

Process 

§ 25. The Lazvs of Habit Formation 

All the changes that are produced in human in- 
tellect, character and skill happen in accord with, 
The law of and as the result of, certain funda- 
exercise. mental laws of change. The first is 

the Law of Exercise, that, other things being 
equal, the oftener or more emphatically a given 
response is connected with a certain situation, the 
more likely it is to be made to that situation in 
the future. Thus, by repeatedly inducing a child 
to respond to the question, 'How many are four 
and two?', by saying, 'Six,' a bond is formed be- 
tween that situation and that response. This law 
may be more briefly stated as: — 'Other things 
being equal, exercise strengthens the bond be- 
tween situation and response/ 

This law needs no comment. It is the most 
commonly recognized law of human behavior. 
The need is rather of emphasis upon the other 
things which may be unequal. Chief among 
them are the consequences of the response, whose 

95 



96 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

power in learning is recognized by the Law of 
Effect. 

The law of The Law of Effect is that, other 

effect. things being equal,* the greater the 

satisfyingness of the state of affairs which ac- 
companies or follozvs a given response to a cer- 
tain situation, the more likely that response is to 
be made to that situation in the future. Con- 
versely, the greater the discomfort or annoying- 
ness of the state of affairs which comes with or 
after a response to a situation, the more likely 
that response is not to be made to that situation 
in the future. Suppose, for example, that when 
a child responds to the situation, being asked, 
'How many are four and two?', by saying 'Six,' 
he is always given kind looks, candy and the ap- 
proval of his fellows. Suppose, on the contrary, 
that he always received rebukes, blows and jeers. 
This law may be stated more briefly as:— ^afw- 
fying results strengthen, and discomfort weak- 
ens, the bond between situation and response. 

Old connections between situation and re- 
sponse are weakened, and new connections are 
created, only by some force. Human nature does 
not do something for nothing. The satisfying- 
ness and annoyingness of the states of affairs 

* The other things that are involved are, besides the law 
of exercise already described, the closeness with which the 
satisfaction or discomfort is connected with the connection 
it is to influence, and the readiness of the response to be 
connected with the situation. Each of these factors is of 
great importance, but their explanation belongs in a special 
volume on educational psychology. 



HABIT FORMATION 97 

which follow the making of the connection are 
the chief forces which remodel man's nature. 
Education makes changes chiefly by rewarding 
them. The prime law in all human control is to 
get the man to make the desired response and to 
be satisfied thereby. 

The Law of Effect is the fundamental law of 
learning and teaching. By it a crab learns to 
respond to the situation, tzvo paths, by taking the 
one, choice of which has in the past brought food. 
By it a dog will learn to respond to the situation, 
a white box and a black box, by neglecting the 
latter if opening it in the past has been promptly 
followed by an electric shock. By it animals are 
taught their tricks ; by it babies learn to smile at 
the sight of the bottle or the kind attendant, and 
to manipulate spoon and fork ; by it the player at 
billiards or golf improves his game ; by it the man 
of science preserves those ideas that satisfy him 
by their promise, and discards futile fancies. It 
is the great weapon of all who wish — in industry, 
trade, government, religion or education— to 
change men's responses, either by reinforcing old 
and adding new ones, or by getting rid of those 
that are undesirable. 

§ 26. Selective Activities 

Human nature is selective throughout. Of any 
total state of affairs or situation, some one part 
may be, and commonly is, predominant in arous- 



98 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

ing response. Thus, of the turmoil of outside 
events, certain particular vibrations of the air 
All behavior and of the ether are effective in stir- 
is selective, j-jng man's receptors to feel and act, 
while the higher sound-waves and the infra-red 
and ultra-violet ethereal vibrations are not. Out 
of a baby's total surroundings, the familiar face 
of its mother or the moving brightness of a toy, 
provokes attention to the neglect of the rest. The 
interested reader's thoughts are determined by 
the meanings of the words of the book— the size 
of the type, the length of the lines, the noises in 
the room, and other features of the total gross 
situation being comparatively without influence. 
Suppose the total situation to be a school class in 
geometry engaged in the consideration of the 
problem, 'If two parallel lines are cut by a trans- 
versal, the alternate interior angles are equal/ 
Not only may the figure and the problem be the 
only part of the total situation that is active in de- 
termining a boy's thoughts, but the one tiny element 
of the parallelness of the two lines may have spe- 
cial predominance. Suppose that the situation 
— thinking of a bicycle— aroused the thought 
'Greek.' Evidently, one small feature of the sit- 
uation determined the response. 
The law of ^^ havt then, as a general law of 

partial activity human learning, the fact that one part 

of a situation. > , r . x -x j* 

or element or feature of a situation 

may be prepotent. The response made will then 

be that which is connected, by original nature or 



SELECTIVE ACTIVITIES 99 

by the laws of exercise and effect, with that part 
or element or feature. This may be called the 
Law of Partial Activity. It may be stated more 
briefly as : — Connections may be zvith elements of 
a situation as well as with the situation as a 
whole. 

The law The second law of selective think- 

of analysis. j^g^ which we may call the Law of 
Analysis, states the conditions under which even 
a very subtle element comes to have responses 
bound to it. It is that: — When any response has 
been connected with many different situations, 
alike in the presence of one element and different 
in other respects, the response is thereby bound 
to that element; so that zvhen that element ap- 
pears, even in a very different total situation, it 
will tend to evoke that response."^ Thus, having 
been led to respond by saying and thinking, 
'Four,' to the situations: — Four apples, hozu 
many?. Four dots, hozu many?. Four boys, hozv 
many?. Four fingers, how many?. Four inches, 
hozv many?, Four feet, hozv many?. Four ounces, 
hozv many?. Four Jiandfuls, hozv many?, etc., etc., 
the child tends to respond to Four peas, hozv 
many?. Four girls, hozv many?, or Four chairs, 
hozv many?, by saying or thinking 'Four.' The 
element of 'fourness' tends to evoke a response 
of its own wherever it occurs. 

By virtue of this law of analysis we are able to 

* This is not a complete statement of the facts in the 
case, but is adequate for the purpose of this introduction. 



lOO THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

acquire habits of response to elements which are 
never experienced by themselves alone, which are 
always melted into amalgams with other ele- 
ments. Man can thus respond to yellow, blue 
and green, regardless of what the colored object 
is ; to long, short, big and little, regardless of 
what the measured object is; to heat, mass, 
square root, gas, liquid, solid, animal, vegetable, 
mineral, good, bad, greater, equal, before, caused 
by, and all qualities, conditions and relations, re- 
gardless of any particular things that may be be- 
fore his eyes. 

Such habits of response to threeness, fourness, 
fiveness, dogness, catness, molecules and atoms, 
vertebrateness and invertebrateness, multiplica- 
tion and division, but, and, if, equality, cause and 
effect, and the innumerable other abstract ele- 
ments with which human thought and conduct 
are concerned, give man his power over nature 
and himself. They are the most important habits 
to be formed by education, — the essence of 
human learning. 

The effect of ^^^^ process of forming connec- 

these two laws tions in thought, feeling and conduct 
on thought. -g ^i^^g enormously intricate. Man's 
learning is not made up merely of connecting a 
million or so total responses — such as putting on 
his hat, thinking of sixteen, or saying elephant — 
each with some one of a million total situations, 
such as 'walking out of his own front door with 



SELECTIVE ACTIVITIES lOI 

his hat in his hand on a sunny day,' 'being asked 
what the square of four is,' or 'seeing elephant 
on a printed page and being asked to pronounce 
the first word in Hne three.' Human learning in- 
volves, on the contrary, a complex arrangement 
of tendencies within tendencies and a hierarchy 
of habits. The printed letters, elephant, for 
example, may connect as a whole with the sound 
of the word made aloud or in inner speech ; each 
group of them, such as ele or pha or nt, tends also 
to evoke whatever sounds it has gone with in the 
person's experience; the ph has not only bonds 
leading to the sound that has been made in re- 
sponse to it, but also bonds, that must now be 
held in check, between the p and its customary 
sound-value and between the h and each of its 
sound-values. Each letter has indeed also some 
slight tendency to still finer bonds. The element 
of shape in the t, for example, has an appreciable 
tendency to arouse the response of thinking of a 
telegraph pole ; each may arouse its letter name 
instead of its various customary sound-values, 
and so on. 

As a further result of the laws of Analysis and 
Partial Activity, any one total situation may be 
responded to in many ways, its various aspects 
and elements producing, one after another, their 
special responses. This process of trying this, 
that and the other promising response of thought 
or action is the first step in reasoning. The 



102 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

second step is the selection of the most promising 
among them to serve as the situation to provoke 
further ideas on the subject. 



§ 2^. Knowledge, Intellectual Powers, Interests, 
Conduct and Skill 

What we call intellect, character and skill is, 

in the case of any man, the sum of the man's 

tendencies to respond to situations 

Education . . . 

deals with and elements of situations. In the 
complexes of averagfc civilized man, the number of 

tendencies. - n- 

diiterent situation-response connec- 
tions that make up this sum would run well up 
into the millions. The average elementary-school 
child at graduation almost certainly has formed 
over a million such bonds in working order. A 
complete inventory of him would require at least 
twenty books the size of this ! In place of any 
list of these detailed tendencies to do just this, or 
think just that, in each particular situation, edu- 
cational theory summarizes the man in terms of 
certain broader traits, such as knowledge of 
arithmetic, helpfulness at home, honesty, love of 
music, and the like. 

Each of these broader habits, abilities, interests 
or propensities commonly involves the existence 
of many original, and of still more acquired, con- 
nections between concrete particular situations 
and concrete particular responses. Even so 
simple and narrow an ability as the ability to add 



MENTAL TRAITS IO3 

Up to 9+9 is by no means limited to the presence 
of the forty-five connections,— 

Situation, i + i— response, 2; 

" 1+2— " 3 ; and so on, up to 

g-\-g- " 18. 

There are also the thirty-six new connections 
with the 'reverses,' 2-I-9 being not the same situ- 
ation as 9+2. Each of the eighty-one combina- 
tions may appear as a spoken question, in all 
sorts of tones, high, low, gentle, harsh, and as a 
seen question in many different forms,* to say 
nothing of differences in the size, color and 
spacing of the writing or printing. 
A common These broader traits may be 

groupmg. grouped roughly under knowledge or 
information, intellectual powers, conduct, inter- 
ests and skill. It is unfortunate for the student 
of education that our language has not used the 
plurals — knozvledgcs, conducts and skills. These 
plurals are needed to describe the human traits 
which educational science studies, such as : — 
knowledge of the meanings of the numbers, one 
to ten, knowledge of German grammar, knowl- 
edge of botany, conduct in respect to lessons, con- 
duct in respect to the property of others, conduct 
in respect to the suffering of others, skill in draw- 

6 

4 

2 2 

* Such as : 9 and 2, 9 plus 2, 9 + 2, 9 9 



I04 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

ing, skill in handwriting, skill in sewing, and the 
Hke. 

The intellectual powers are hard to distinguish 
from the corresponding knowledges. Thus one 
may equally well say, 'a reading knowledge of 
German' and 'the power to read German.' The 
distinction most usefully made is that knowledge 
is used when the trait or ability is a group of par- 
ticular connections, such as between the sounds 
of words and their spelling; while pozver is used 
when the trait is some element or elements of 
several such groups of connections. Thus one 
would speak of the power to compute and to 
draw accurately. But all such distinctions are of 
minor importance. 

Practical The three chief questions which 

problems. education asks about these large, com- 
plex groups of tendencies, which we may for 
clearness call knowledges, powers, conducts, skills 
and interests, concern their composition, improve- 
ment and relations one to another. With respect 
to any such trait we may inquire: — (i) What is 
its nature? Of what more detailed tendencies is 
it made up? (2) To what extent, in what ways, 
and under what conditions, can it be made more 
efficient? (3) What other traits does it go with 
or depend upon ; and what help or harm to other 
traits comes from improving it? 

The first set of problems, concerning the exact 
analysis of, say, the ability to read, or the appre- 
ciation of music, or skill at drawing, or the lin- 
guistic interest, cannot well be treated without re- 



IMPROVEMENT BY PRACTICE IO5 

liance upon an acquaintance with technical psy- 
chological facts which few readers of this book 
will possess. The second and third sets are the 
subjects of the next two sections. 

§ 28. Improvement by Practice 

Students of human nature have only within a 
few years begun to study scientifically the con- 
crete facts of the improvement of mental abilities 
by practice. The first investigation of the effect 
of practice upon any of the complex abilities, 
such as education deals with, was reported by 
Bryan and Harter in 1897,* the abilities being 
reading and tapping out the telegraphic language. 
Some of their findings will make a useful intro- 
duction to the facts and problems of practice in 
general. 

The amount of Figure 2 shows the amount of im- 
improvement. provement from forty weeks of study 
in a school for telegraphers. The number of let- 
ters that can be tapped out per minute rises from 
practically zero to 140; and the number that can 
be read from the instrument's ticks rises to al- 
most 120. This amount of improvement can be 
made, however, only by an intelligent worker 
who practices with zeal. Many students never 
get far above the minimum requirement for a 
position — seventy-two letters per minute. 

Figure 3 shows the amount of improvement 

* In the Psychological Review, Vol. IV, No. i, and Vol. 
VI, No. 4. 




I06 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

from forty hours of practice at typewriting by 
the 'sight' method, the beginning being made 
after some general instructions. It is interesting 
to note that forty hours of practice enables one 

140- ^-140 

-60 
-40 

-g 4 6 12 16 20 24 26 ^2 36 40 

-J Weeks of practice. 

Fig. 2. 

Fig. 2. The curs'^es of practice for a certain individual 
in sending (upper curve) and in receiving (lower 
curve) telegraphic messages. Each sixteenth of an inch 
(approx.) along the base line equals one week of 
practice. The number of letters that can be tapped out 
in the telegraphic language in one minute at the ex- 
piration of any given number of weeks of practice (up 
to 40) is represented by the height of the upper curve 
at the corresponding point. The lower curve shows 
similarly the number of letters that can be read in a 
minute from the taps of the telegraphic key after any 
given amount of practice (up to 40 weeks). After 
Bryan and Harter, loc. cit. 

to typewrite nearly as fast as he can write legibly 
by hand. In general, when one sets oneself 
zealously to improve any ability, the amount 
gained is astonishing. For example, ten minutes 
a day of forcing practice for ten days increases 



IMPROVEMENT BY PRACTICE IO7 

the amount of addition which one can do per 

minute by a fifth, without diminishing its ac- 
curacy. 




CO 



5 10 15 2.0 25 30 35 AO A5 

Hours of pra.ctlce. 

Fig. 3. 



Fig. 3. The curves of practice for two individuals in 
typewriting by the sight method after some preHminary 
instructions. Each twentieth of an inch (approx.) 
along the base Hne represents one hour of practice. 
The number of strokes that can be made (with few or 
no errors) in one minute after any given amount of 
practice is represented by the height of the curve at the 
corresponding point. After Book, Psychology of Skill, 
plate opposite p. 20. 



The limits of So great improvement is, however, 
improvement, possible Only within the lower ranges 
of an ability. After a time, indeed, one may 
reach his limit and be unable to improve at all. 



I08 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

The most expert telegraphers, who have thus 
reached their Hmit in the abiHty in question, can 
read off the ticks at the rate of over 150 letters 
per minute. This means the ordering and inter- 
preting of over 600 sounds per minute. The ex- 
perts at typewriting can copy any ordinary matter 
at the rate of 70 or 80 words per minute. Such 
experts in typewriting, golf, adding, needlework 
and the like, are probably specially gifted by 
nature with a high limit, and their achievements 
are probably above what men in general could 
do with no matter how long practice. On the 
other hand, we stay far below our own possi- 
bilities in almost everything that we do. We stay 
where we do, not because proper practice would 
not improve us further, but because we do not take 
the training or because we take it with too little 
zeal. We remain as incompetent as we are, because 
we do not care enough about improvements. 

Changes in ^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ Figure 2 that the 

the rate of rate of improvement — the amount 
improvement, g^jj^g^^ p^j. -y^eek of practice— is not 

the same throughout, in the case of either send- 
ing or receiving. The sender does not, each four 
weeks, add 14 to his score ; but gains about 43 in 
the first four weeks, 37 in the second four, and 
hardly over 2 in the last or next to the last four 
weeks. The rate of improvement grows less as 
practice increases. In receiving, the rate of im- 
provement is about the same during each of the 
first fourteen weeks; then drops to almost zero 



IMPROVEMENT BY PRACTICE IO9 

for about ten weeks ; and then rises again, rapidly 
at first, but in the last twelve weeks more slowly. 
The changes in the rate of improvement, shown 
clearly in the practice curves of Figure 2, are 
thus very different in the two cases, sending and 
receiz'ing. 

The plateaus, or periods of apparently zero 
rate of improvement, are of special interest. 
They may represent desirable resting-periods, 
periods of mental organization of what has been 
acquired ; but in other cases they may represent 
mere stagnation for lack of zeal or a change in 
method. We are all likely to stay on such a level, 
far below what we would be able to achieve by 
proper effort. 

The elements in The improved efficiency of a mental 
improvement, t^ait or ability involves :— the addition 
of new processes ; the elimination of old ones that 
are undesirable; and the simultaneous building 
up of a new one and abandonment of an old one, 
which we call 'substitution.' These facts are 
easily observable in almost any practice experi- 
ment. In typewriting one at first uses only the 
Addingnew forefingers, but comes to add move- 
processes, ments of all the other fingers. In ad- 
dition one gets the new power to think 'thirteen' 
immediately upon seeing 4, 7, 2 in a column ; or 
even to think thirty-nine, sixty-seven, ninety-six, 
hundred seventeen, hundred forty-two, upon see- 
ing 17, 22, 28, 29, 21, 25 in a column. The elim- 
ination of harmful or irrelevant facts is equally 



no THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

important. One learns not to fidget, not to worry 

about the result, not to listen to noises in the 

street, in almost any task. In hand- 
Elimination. ... 

writmg, improvement with practice 

consists in part in omitting the tremblings, over- 
pressures, and erratic pushes and pulls. In adding, 
one ceases to say to oneself, 'Three and nine are 
twelve; twelve and seven are nineteen,' and the 
like; or even to think anything save, 'Twelve, 
nineteen,' and so on. The substitu- 

Substitution. . . ^ . . , 

tion of a better process is seen in the 
case of 'reading' the telegraphic ticks. At first 
each tick is identified and they are put together 
to make letters. Then the series which equals a 
letter is taken in as a whole and given its letter 
value at once, the old deliberate identification of 
the letter piecemeal becoming unnecessary. Then 
the entire series which stands for a common 
word, like the, in, of, has, or zt^as, gets power as a 
unit to call up that word directly, and the old 
putting of the letters together is left to one side. 
Finally, a long series of clicks, standing for a 
phrase, comes to evoke the response of that total 
phrase without any need on the part of the teleg- 
rapher to get the words and put them together. 
Practice thus builds up, level by level, a hierarchy 
of habits, each new set making some of the older 
ones unnecessary. 

Besides such easily observable additions, elimi- 
nations, and substitutions, there are alterations 
within what seem from the outside to be single, 



IMPROVEMENT BY PRACTICE III 

indivisible processes, but which are, physiologi- 
cally, compounds. Thus the process of respond- 
subtier ing to the sight of tzvo and seven in a 

changes. column to he added, by the thought 

'nine,' implies the action of many processes in the 
neurones of the brain. By addition, elimination, 
and substitution among the parts of this hidden 
compound, a man, after practice, comes to think 
of 'nine' 999.999 times out of a million, whereas 
before he would go wrong twice as often; or 
comes to think of 'nine' in a fifth of a second, 
whereas before it required two fifths. We can, 
then, improve without knowing how we improve. 
The satisfyingness of the greater accuracy or 
quicker speed may select for retention or elim- 
ination among the hidden processes of the brain, 
as well as among features of behavior which can 
be isolated and described by ordinary observation. 
The conditions Mere practice does not make per- 
ofimprovement. fg^t. The repetition of an activity 
need not improve it. Indeed, if just the same 
thing happened each time, the pupil could not 
improve. Repetition is useful because the pupil 
does not exactly repeat, — because a chance is 
given him to vary what he does, to select for use 
the variations which improve the ability, and to 
eliminate those which weaken it. He may, as has 
just been shown, seem from the outside to do the 
same thing; but, if he is to improve, the neurones 
in his brain do not, trial by trial, repeat exactly 
their previous performance. 



112 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

To improve he must vary ; and the variations 
must include some that are beneficial. They may 
include many that are irrelevant or even harmful, 
for these can be eliminated by proper means. So 
any condition that stimulates the pupil to a va- 
riety of methods has a chance of leading to im- 
provement. If he is working with a definite aim, 
so that these variations arise as means adopted 
consciously or unconsciously in the service of that 
aim, this chance is increased. 

The good variations must be selected for sur- 
vival by the law of effect. Hence the supreme 
importance of interest in the task and in im- 
proved ability at it. Interest multiplies the satis- 
fyingness of every success and inspires effort to 
discover and eliminate the causes of every fail- 
ure. Ten minutes of practice with full zeal, the 
worker being keen to do his very best and joyous 
at every advance in his accomplishment, is worth 
an hour of work done to avoid a worse fate or of 
play engaged in to pass away the time. 

§ 29. The Influence of Improvement in One 

Mental Ability upon the Efficiency of 

Other Abilities 

The improvement of one ability may help or 

may harm others. Thus improvement in speed 

and accuracy in marking the verbs in 

urf^""bmt^ P^^^ after page of English books, due 

helps others, to special practice, brought about a 



TRANSFER OF IMPROVEMENT II3 

reduction in the time required to find preposi- 
tions, or adverbs, or nouns, but an increase in the 
errors and omissions. 

In general, the improvement of any one of the 
abihties which are recognized as desirable helps 
any other. There are certain elements — such as 
neglecting the impulse to idle and to heed sensory 
distractions, expecting to work with a will, de- 
siring to find a wise method, not being worried or 
over-excited, and the like— which may play a 
part in making a man's responses to almost any 
situation more effective. By establishing or con- 
firming these attitudes and ideals of method and 
procedure in the course of improving one ability, 
say, to compute, one may be in a better position 
in the case of many others. Also there are many 
elements which reappear in very many difiFerent 
situations, so that encountering them in one pre- 
pares somewhat for many others. 
But less than ^he gain in the efficiency of other 
is commonly abilities from the improvement of one 
supposed. -g^ however, far less than has been ex- 

pected. Thus, suppose that the reader should 
now test himself in respect to the speed and ac- 
curacy with which he could find and mark words 
containing both i and t, or words containing both 
.y and p, or capital A's, and the like. Suppose 
that he should then practice at finding and mark- 
ing the words containing both e and s until he 
made substantial improvement. On re-testing his 
ability to find the i—t words, or s—p words, he 



114 THE MATERIAL FOTl EDUCATION 

would find that it had improved only about a 
third as much as the e — .? ability. Even so slight 
a difference in the abilities restricts the improve- 
ment made in one in large measure to it alone. 
Or suppose that the reader, before and after 
practice in remembering a sequence of four in- 
tensities of sound for eight seconds in spite of 
distraction, tested himself in memorizing poetry, 
rows of figures, or a series of shades of gray. 
He would manifest only about a fifth as much 
improvement in these abilities as he made in the 
ability specially trained. 

It used to be thought, erroneously. 

Extravagant , , . ,, , , . 

notions of the that man s mtellectual and moral re- 
transferof sponses were due in the main to a 

improvement. 

few formal abilities, such as atten- 
tion, memory, imagination^ reasoning, conscience, 
the will and the like, which worked in large meas- 
ure irrespective of what particular stuff was to 
be attended to, remembered, reasoned about or 
chosen. It was thought that improvement, say, 
in reasoning about Latin grammar, meant in the 
main an improvement in the ability to reason in 
general, and only slightly an improvement in 
special skill in thinking about Latin syntax alone. 
Intellect was not thought of as a multitude of 
special bonds between particular situations and 
particular responses, but as a few faculties or 
powers which could conduct certain operations 
equally well with almost any situation whatever. 
The following quotations, each from a dif- 



TRANSFER OF IMPROVEMENT II5 

ferent author, represent fairly this now dis- 
credited notion of very great general mental dis- 
cipHne by the improvement of one or another 
ability :— 

"The pursuit of mathematics gives command of 
the attention. . . . The man or woman who has been 
drilled by means of mathematics is the better able to 
select from a number of possible lines which may be 
suggested that which is easiest or most direct to 
attain a desired end. The second purpose of this 
study is . . . the strengthening and training of the 
reasoning powers." 

"By means of experimental and observational 
work in science . . . his attention will be excited, 
the power of observation . . . much strengthened, 
and the senses exercised and disciplined." 

"Correct use of the foreign language . . . makes 
concentration imperative and serves in an eminent 
degree as a discipline of the zvill. . . . Practice in 
the use of a foreign language cultivates the imagi- 
nation." 

"The capability of concentrating attention on a 
certain point in question, in whatever field it is ac- 
quired, will show itself efficacious in all fields." 

"Will-power and attention are educated by physi- 
cal training. When developed by any special act, 
they are developed for all acts." 

As a result of the experiments that have been 
made since 1900., such expectations of universal 
transfer of ability in large amounts are no longer 
entertained by competent thinkers. It is agreed 
that there is no mysterious necessity in the nature 
of man which makes an improvement in gram- 



Il6 THE MATERIAL FOR EDUCATION 

matical reasoning spread to produce great im- 
provement in all rational thought, or makes im- 
proved attentiveness to numbers in computation 
produce power to attend to the cloth in a loom 
or the marks on a butterfly. It is agreed that a 
gain in one ability improves others only in so far 
as it is proved to do so,— that the question of the 
disciplinary value of any training is a question of 
fact to be measured, not an article of educational 
faith to be assumed. It is agreed that, roughly, 
we can hope for such wider improvement only in 
so far as the other abilities in question are in part 
identical with the ability specially trained. In- 
vestigations to ascertain just what these identities 
are, and just how far the improvement of cer- 
tain abilities influences others, are among the most 
important now being made by scientific students 
of education. 



chapter vii 
The Means of Education 

§ 30. Educative Forces in General 

The means of education are all the causes that 
produce or prevent those changes in human 
Means of beings with which education is con- 

education cerned. Such are climate, soil, scen- 
defined. ^^^^ animals, plants, shelter, food, 

parental care, government, churches, schools, li- 
braries, family, friends, customs, productive 
labor, games, and the like, with all the varieties 
of each, and all the accessories of each variety. 
A list of all the means employed as accessories 
of schools alone would fill a large volume. Per- 
fect education would control all means that could 
change any human being — the bacilli of typhoid 
that might weaken him, the 'gang' he went with, 
the games he played, as well as the lessons that 
he studied and the books that he read. 

In thought it is easy to separate ofif these 
changers from the human nature changed, the 
means of education from its material. But in 
fact the line between changer and changed — 
means and material— is often hard to place. 

Means and material— what happens to a man 

117 



Il8 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

and what he originally is— are often inseparably 
linked in the real world, so that it is only for con- 
venience in thought and practice that any line is 
drawn. It is in fact less important to try to 
mark one off from the other definitely than to 
note the fact of their linkage and the resulting 
fact that any means becomes effective through a 
reaction by the person to be educated. Any 
change in him is conditioned by his own nature 
and implies that he responds somehow to the 
stimulus given. The educative force must, one 
might say, not only get at him but get into him. 
Educative forces are effective only as they pro- 
voke responses. 

Persons and ^ne might well emphasize the im- 

things as means portance of human beings compared 
of education. ^^j^|^ other animals, plants, and in- 
animate objects as changers of human nature by 
giving them a separate name, such as agents, and 
describing the varieties of human influence upon 
human beings separately. Man's influence may 
be exerted unintentionally, as when the manner- 
isms of parents teach children, or intentionally, 
as when parents pronounce words for a baby to 
imitate. The influence of things, plants, and of 
animals in almost all cases, is exerted without 
foresight or purpose on their part. The educative 
action of means other than human is also com- 
monly impelled and guided by some human being. 
Gravity, galvanism, climate, scenery, grass, 
worms and the like do their educational work, 



EDUCATIVE FORCES IIQ 

chiefly as tools in the hands of agents or human 
means. 

Teachers— that is, human beings whose special 
work in the world is formally recognized as edu- 
cation—are, of course, only a small fraction of 
the human means of education. Parents and 
friends are perhaps surer means ; public speakers 
and writers are perhaps weightier ; and the vague 
sum of behavior which is called public opinion, 
custom, or the mores, is more wide-spread The 
teacher is, however, rapidly becoming a larger 
and larger share of the total human educative 
force. 

It is instructive to bear in mind 
^gen^ylnd ^hc gain that is often made by 
experiment the addition of a new means of edu- 
means. cation or the alteration of an old one. 

Recent examples in the case of ele- 
mentary school education are : — supplementary 
text-books, libraries, museums, pictures, sand- 
piles, blocks, tools, projection-lanterns, medical 
inspection, visiting nurses, milk-tickets, clinics, 
excursions, outdoor class-rooms, workshops, 
gymnasiums, savings-banks, and the like. The 
instructiveness consists in the inference that fur- 
ther modifications of means may equally econo- 
mize and improve education. It seems indubita- 
ble, for instance, that giving, say, three fourths 
of the addition examples in the form of properly 
printed sheets, the answer only to be written by 
the pupils, would save a hundred million hours a 



120 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

year of the time of children in this country 
alone, with no loss in any other respect and with 
other advantages. 

So also the substitution of typewriting ma- 
chines for the pen in the case of pupils in the 
last two grades who expect to do office work 
seems imperative. The average time required for 
an interested pupil in these grades to learn to 
write by machine as fast as he can write legibly 
by hand is probably little over fifty hours. Even 
if it were a hundred hours, one typewriter in use 
through the school session (making generous al- 
lowance for the time when it might have to be 
unused) would each year give that degree of 
mastery to eight pupils. Making, as before, gen- 
erous allowance for natural wear and tear and 
damages, a pupil could be given that degree of 
mastery at a cost for tools well under two dollars. 

There is need not only of experimentation with 
new agents and instruments in school education, 
but also of critical examination of those already 
employed. What persons shall be chosen as teach- 
ers, what subjects shall be chosen for study, and 
what arrangements shall be made for the time, 
place, equipment and management of schools, are 
questions which, when taken in connection with 
the countless differences among the individuals 
to be educated, offer a practically infinite series 
of problems. 

A survey of the whole field, no matter how 
superficial, is impossible; and would in any case 



THE VALUES OF STUDIES 121 

be less instructive than the same time given to a 
few sample problems. I therefore present, in this 
and the following chapter, some of the facts 
about only the following problems of educational 
means:— (i) The various studies and sorts of 
knowledge, (2) the means of choosing or 'elect- 
ing' studies, (3) the arrangement of studies, (4) 
the efficiency of men and women as teachers, and 
(5) the efficiency of personal and 'text-book' 
teaching. 

§ 31. The Values of Studies 

Among the many means used in school educa- 
tion the 'studies' — that is, the portions of the arts 
and sciences which are learned — are the most 
notable. The problem of deciding what each of 
these is good for as an educational instrument, 
and which of them, if any, are superior to the 
rest — the problem, that is, of the values, absolute 
and relative, of studies — has naturally led to 
much discussion. 

Doubtless we all feel sure that German has a 
greater value than Ojibway as a school study, 
though we might find the fact hard to prove ; but 
whether German has a greater or less value than 
Greek few would assume to decide. The scien- 
tifically proved facts concerning just what 
changes are produced in pupils as a result of this 
or that study are so very scanty that one is left 
to estimate values on the basis of general knowl- 
edge of human nature and of the studies them- 



122 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

selves. Such estimates are insecure, but can be 
made less so by knowledge and use of certain 
principles. 

Value equals ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ va\ue 

value as of any study, as a means or instru- 

^ ^ ' ment of education, depends on how 

the teacher teaches it and what the pupil learns 
from it, not upon what the study is in and of it- 
self. English literature has little value as a means 
to refining taste, broadening sympathy and deep- 
ening insight, if the teacher makes it a system of 
petty gossip about Carlyle's dyspepsia and Shel- 
ley's eccentricities. Geometry does little for the 
reasoning powers of a pupil who learns it by rote. 
Two of the greatest sources of misleading in 
arguments about the value of studies are the false 
assumptions that by merely putting a subject in 
the course of study we can put its value into the 
lives of the children, and that the value which a 
subject may have when pursued with zeal by an 
expert will be realized when it is studied by no 
matter whom. For example, it might seem that, 
since psychology is the science of human nature 
and behavior, and since to learn to control one- 
self and live well with other human beings is 
man's greatest work, psychology should be a 
leading subject in schools for all. But, as it was 
taught in high schools, psychology did not have 
any such superior value. So, also, expert lovers 
of a study are likely to feel sure that, since it 
does so much for them, it should be studied by 



THE VALUES OF STUDIES 12^ 

all. They learn their error if they observe its 
actual results. 

A study's '^^^ second principle is that the 

vaiueis value of a study is a complex — the re- 

compex. sultant of several different sorts of 

value. Adopting the customary division into 
physical education, intellectual education, moral 
education, technical education and esthetic edu- 
cation, we have to test each study's effect on 
health, knowledge and intellectual abilities and 
interests, conduct, skill, and appreciation or taste. 
Or, considering the ultimate purposes of educa- 
tion, we have to measure each study's service in 
making man's wants better and in making him 
able to satisfy them. Thus it is expected that 
literature as a school study will increase the 
student's good will toward men by broadening 
his sympathies and inspiring him with emulation 
of ideal characters, will replace selfish sensory 
pleasures by the impersonal satisfaction of read- 
ing, and will also give him an added insight into 
human nature which will help him to manage 
himself and other men, so that his and their 
wants can be better satisfied. One reason for the 
difficulty of decisions about the relative values of 
studies as means is the fact that they are means 
to such different purposes or ends. It is hard to 
balance ten per cent, improvement in health 
against four per cent, improvement in morality 
or eight per cent, improvement in intellect. 

Thinkers about education tend in this respect 



124 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

to fall into two opposing camps — one eager to 
devote the energy of schools to making wants 
better, and the other eager to use the schools to 
help men get what they do want. The former 
favor whatever studies they think likely to im- 
prove ideals of thought and conduct, with little 
heed to satisfying even these ideal wants, much 
less those which man actually feels. The latter 
urge for children those subjects by studying 
which they may get health, escape poverty, enjoy 
their leisure hours, and otherwise have more of 
what a decent, but not very idealistic, person 
wants. Of course thinkers of the first group are 
glad to gratify wants incidentally; and those of 
the second group are glad to improve, incidental- 
ly, the wants which they are satisfying. But 
there remains a conflict between those who value 
primarily a study that teaches men what to want, 
and those who value primarily a study that helps 
them get what they do want. 

Each study's value is complex in two further 
ways. It may have intrinsic value as content, and 
derived value as a tool. It may have a narrow 
or 'specific' value, by the improvement it makes 
in the ability specially trained by it ; and a broad- 
er, or 'transfer,' or 'disciplinary,' value, by the 
improvement it makes in other abilities. 

Stenography, telegraphy, handwriting, loga- 
rithms, and the Greek or German script-alpha- 
bet, contrasted with the facts of physics, chem- 
istry, or Greek literature, exemplify tool-values 



THE VALUES OF STUDIES 125 

versus content-values. In general there is cause 

for suspicion of a study whose sole or chief value 

is as a tool. There is likely to be 
Intrinsic value . . . 

and value waste in teaching such a subject, since 

as a tool or ^-j^g pupil may not realize the need 
instrument. . . 

which the tool is designed to meet. 

Also there is likely to be waste because the pupil's 
education may cease before he learns what to do 
with the tool, or because he lacks the ability or 
the zeal to use it. Thus those parts of algebra 
which are of value primarily as tools for use in 
advanced mathematics are to be questioned as re- 
quired studies for all pupils in the first year of 
high school, since not one pupil in ten will study 
advanced mathematics, and since only very gifted 
pupils can use these delicate tools for quantitative 
thought without special training. Some of the 
tools of thought, such as reading, writing and 
simple computation, are, on the other hand, so 
easily and so widely usable that the value of these 
studies is very great. But, even with them, it is 
well to make sure that the tool will be used by 
having it acquired in connection with content of 
intrinsic value,— that is, by having children learn 
to read with matter worth reading, learn to write 
as a means of telling facts, making wants known 
and the like, and learn to add or multiply as a 
means to quick and sure solution of real 
problems. 

The difference between the narrow value, due 
to the particular ability primarily trained, and the 



126 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

disciplinary value, due to the transfer of im- 
provement to other abihties also, cannot be well 
Specific and illustrated by contrasted studies. For 
disciplinary every study may have both sorts of 
"®^* value in some measure. But it is 

clear that unless the geometry of the high school 
has a high degree of disciplinary value by its 
training in rigid reasoning from general prin- 
ciples, it should give way to other studies in the 
case of many pupils. Its narrow value, as special 
skill and knowledge in reasoning about circles, 
triangles and the like, is obviously less than that 
of physics, biology or economics, which train pu- 
pils to reason about matter and motion, animal and 
plant behavior, and the motives and acts of men. 
In attemptinsf to estimate the value 

Summary. x o ... 

of a study, then, one should, if possi- 
ble, secure the actual facts which measure the 
changes produced in students as a result of having 
taken that study. Where this is impossible, one 
can at least take account of how the subject is 
taught and of how it is studied, of its effect on 
health, knowledge, intellectual abilities and inter- 
ests, conduct, skill and taste, of what improve- 
ment it makes in wants and which wants it satis- 
fies, of its service as content and as a tool, and of 
its disciplinary value as well as the particular 
abilities that it primarily trains. 

In the case of the knowledge value of the 
school subjects certain further principles are use- 
ful. These are stated in the next section. 



THE VALUES OF KNOWLEDGE 12/ 



§ 2i2. What Knowledge is of Most Worth 

We judge the relative value of different sorts 
of knowledge by the extent to which each helps 
toward the ultimate end of education — the im- 
provement and satisfaction of wants. Thus it is 
easy to see that knowledge of German is worth 
more than knowledge of Choctaw, that knowl- 
edge of the cause of malaria is worth more than 
knowledge of the cause of tickling, or that knowl- 
edge of the properties of oxygen is worth more 
than knowledge of the anatomy of a trilobite. 
The complexity Even in such obvious cases, how- 
of the problem, g^gj., the Condition, 'worth more to 
most people' ought to be added. For it may be 
more to the common good for a few people — 
government agents for Indian affairs, for in- 
stance—to know an Indian language than to 
know German. For a scientist, who by knowl- 
edge of the cause of tickling may be led to im- 
portant discoveries, to know that rather than the 
cause of malaria may be best. Also the value of 
each fragment of knowledge depends upon what 
other knowledge goes with it. Knowledge of the 
properties of oxygen is of much less value alone 
than when in combination with other facts of 
chemistry. The difference between wisdom and 
pedantry is in part a difference in the arrange- 
ment of knowledge. 

In the third place, the value of any knowledge 



128 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

is due to many factors, such as its interesting- 
ness, its utility, its moral influence, and its dis- 
ciplinary effect upon the entire intellect and char- 
acter of its possessor. Consequently the knowl- 
edge that is of more worth in one respect will 
often be of less worth in others, and many judg- 
ments concerning the values of knowledge have 
to be prefaced by, 'other things being equal.' 

With these three limitations — that better means 
better in most cases, better provided it has other 
relevant knowledge combined with it, and better 
in so far as concerns the particular quality under 
discussion — the following rules are service- 
able:— 

Realities versus Knowledge of the real is better 
fictions. ih^LU knowledge of the non-existent. 

This may seem self-evident, but the implied com- 
mand has not been obeyed. Babies are told all 
sorts of nonsense ; kindergartens abound in pleas- 
ant lies ; a fourth of the reading-matter for chil- 
dren in the elementary schools is fiction. These 
choices of the false instead of the true have not 
been justified by proof that the fancy does little 
harm by being false, and much good by being in- 
teresting and stimulating to right feeling and 
action. The balance of value has not been proved 
to favor the fancy rather than the truth proposed 
as a substitute. In many cases the choice of the 
false could be justified. Red Riding Hood, Cin- 
derella and the Three Bears, for instance, do 
much good by the innocent pleasure they give and 



THE VALUES OF KNOWLEDGE I29 

by their admirable service in teaching children 
how to read. In many cases, too, the ostensibly 
fanciful account may mislead little children less 
than the ostensible truth. But in other cases they 
learn lies to no advantage. 

Extent of Knowledge is of value in propor- 

appucation. ^Jq^ to the number of situations to 
which it applies. 'Knowledge of principles is bet- 
ter than knowledge of mere facts,' and 'knowl- 
edge of fundamentals is better than knowledge of 
derivatives,' are common partial statements of 
this rule. It states what should oftenest be the 
deciding factor in the choice of the knowledge to 
be given to all, or nearly all, pupils alike. It 
governs the choice between German and Choc- 
taw, or between oxygen and trilobites. Knowl- 
edge of means of measuring time, distance, area, 
volume, weight and wealth, and of performing 
simple computations, is by it judged to be of 
more value than the knowledge of geometry that 
could be obtained by the same pupils in the same 
time. Percentage is by it judged to be of more 
value than interest, brokerage or discount. 
Importance of Knowledge is of value in propor- 
appUcation. ^[^^ ^q ^j^g importance to human wel- 
fare of the situations to which it applies. The 
preference of knowledge of the cause of malaria 
to knowledge of the cause of tickling is an ap- 
plication of this principle. So also knowledge of 
steam-engines would be preferred to knowledge 
of millinery, in spite of the fact that hats figure 



130 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

more frequently in life. Knowledge pertaining to 
moral conduct is thus above knowledge pertain- 
ing to manners ; knowledge pertaining to health 
is above knowledge pertaining to wealth ; knowl- 
edge pertaining to the family and the state is 
above knowledge pertaining to such conventions 
of language as spelling and punctuation. 
Power in Knowledge of the future is of more 

prediction. worth than knowledge of the past. 
When the two are equal in respect to the intel- 
lectual pleasure, the discipline and the moral in- 
spiration given, knowledge that can predict is 
better than knowledge that merely records, be- 
cause it helps us better in the main business for 
which knowledge exists — to control the forces of 
nature and ourselves. 

This principle has not had the recognition or 
influence in education which it deserves. Verifi- 
cation by the future is one of the best tests by 
which to distinguish science from false opinion. 
Moreover, knowledge of the past is often of 
value chiefly as evidence for some other knowl- 
edge, and so may be nearly as valuable to the 
world at large when possessed by only a few ex- 
perts as when repeated in a great many students' 
minds. Finally when knowledge is tested to see 
what it will predict, it is less likely to busy itself 
with trifles. 

The use of these principles in actual decisions 
may be illustrated in the case of the value (for 
elementary-school pupils in general) of the study 



THE VALUES OF KNOWLEDGE I3I 

now commonly made of Greatest Common Di- 
visor and Least Common Multiple, in compari- 
These criteria son with an equal amount of study of 
iuustrated. what I shall call the 'Remainder Divi- 
sion Table/— that is, of the series:— 

10= _2S 

10= _3s and _ remainder 

10= _4s " - 

10= _5s 

79= -8s " _ 

79= _9s '' _ 

80= _9s *' _ " , etc. 

In respect to the improvement of wants— the cul- 
tivation of the good will and of impersonal pleas- 
ures—there is little reason for choice. The value 
in either case lies in the mental training and di- 
rect utility in satisfying wants. In respect to 
mental training, also, there is little or no differ- 
ence, the opportunity to impress habits of ac- 
curate and intelligent use of division and subtrac- 
tion in the case of the remainder drills being 
nearly or quite as serviceable as the opportunity 
to impress similar habits of using division, multi- 
plication and comparison in the case of drills on 
Greatest Common Divisor and Least Common 
Multiple. The issue is then one of the practical 
services rendered by the two bodies of knowl- 
edge, as knowledge. Both are alike so far as 
reality versus fiction and history versus prophecy 
are concerned. We have then to inquire about 



132 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

the number, and importance to human welfare, 
of the situations to which Greatest Common Di- 
visor, Least Common Multiple and the Remain- 
der Table apply. 

The knowledge of Greatest Common Divisor 
is a means of reducing fractions, and of solving 
such problems as:— 

A merchant has 60 pounds of tea of one kind, 75 
pounds of another, and 100 pounds of another, which 
he wishes to put up in the largest possible equal 
packages without mixing the different kinds. How 
many pounds should be put in each package ? 

Mr. A. has 324 acres of land in one farm and 78 
acres in another. He wishes to divide these into the 
largest possible fields of equal size. How many fields 
will there be, and how many acres in each field ? 

The service of study of Least Common Mul- 
tiple is as a means of adding and subtracting 
fractions, and of solving such problems as : — 

How long must a box be that no room may be lost 
in packing in it books 6 inches, 8 inches, or 12 inches 
long? 

A lady desires to purchase a piece of cloth that 
can be cut, without waste, into parts 4, 5, or 6 yards 
long. How many yards must the piece contain ? 

I have a certain number of pennies which I can 
arrange in either 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 equal piles. What 
number of pennies have I, if it is the least number 
that admits of such arrangement? 

How many bushels will the smallest bin contain 
that can be emptied by taking out either 7 bushels, 
10 bushels, or 30 bushels at a time? 



THE VALUES OF KNOWLEDGE 1 33 

Four agents start from New York at the same 
time. The first makes his trip in eight weeks, the 
second in nine weeks, the third in fifteen weeks, and 
the fourth in twenty weeks. How many weeks will 
pass by before they will again start out from New 
York together? 

But cancellation is a far better method of re- 
ducing fractions than Greatest Common Divisor; 
and the use of any common denominator that the 
worker can think of quickly is a far better 
method in adding and subtracting fractions than 
Least Common Multiple. As to the service for 
problems, the advantage over common-sense so- 
lutions is in any case slight, and the number of 
such problems that life ofifers is so few that text- 
book makers have difficulty in getting problems 
for the application of Greatest Common Divisor 
and Least Common Multiple that are not fan- 
tastic. Of the seven problems quoted, from a 
text-book of presumably high grade, six are thus 
fantastic. 

The Remainder Table is of constant service in 
'short' division, in getting the trial quotients in 
long division, and in solving some of the com- 
monest problems of the small shop. Its exten- 
sion to such cases as 

30= _I3S and _ remainder 
30= _i4s " _ 

makes one of the best introductions to long 
division. Study of it may then be expected to 



134 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

have a much greater value than equal study of 
the calculation of greatest common divisors and 
least common multiples. 

The retention of elaborate instruction in Great- 
est Common Divisor and Least Common Multi- 
ple and the neglect of the Remainder Theorem 
seem thus to be fair illustrations of the need of 
two of our rules: — knowledge is of value in pro- 
portion to the number of situations to which it 
applies ; and in proportion to their importance to 
human welfare. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Means of Education (concluded) 

§ 33. The Election of Studies 

Since there are more subjects for study than 
any one person could possibly complete, there 
The problem must be election or choice among 
defined. them ; since in<3ividuals differ as they 

do in original capacities and interests, and since 
the welfare of the world requires men to en- 
gage in, and be prepared for, different careers, 
there ought to be such election. After the first 
few years of school the question is not of a uni- 
form requirement versus an elective system, but 
of who shall elect, from how wide an offering, 
and in what manner. For our purpose these 
questions may be considered to most advantage 
in a sample case, say, the choice of studies for 
high-school pupils in a city maintaining a high 
school with five hundred pupils and twenty 
teachers, offering one hundred courses, each last- 
ing a year and occupying from three to five 
periods of fifty minutes' length in the schedule. 
How may choice among them be made the most 
effective means of education? 

The issue oftenest discussed is whether the 

135 



136 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

pupil shall choose for himself or the school for 
him. But this is a somewhat unusual issue. The 
pupil does not, though left to himself by teacher 
and principal, choose for himself, unless his 
parents are very careless or indulgent. The 
school, if left to itself by pupils and parents, does 
not choose for the pupil. It either makes a set 
choice alike for all pupils with no consideration 
of him, as in a curriculum all required ; or it dele- 
gates the choice for him to some one adviser. Most 
commonly of all, it forces the pupil and his parents 
to make, at the beginning, one large and crucial 
choice — such as between Classical, Scientific, Com- 
mercial and Manual Training curricula; then it 
makes a set of choices alike for all those who 
have chosen alike in this first crucial election ; 
finally it leaves the pupils and parents to choose, 
subject to more or less restriction, how the re- 
maining time shall be spent. 

Whatever may be said of the merits of whole- 
sale decisions by the school in comparison with 
decisions for individuals by themselves and their 
parents, this common system — of forcing a crucial 
election of the bulk of four years' work upon the 
latter at the very start — is certainly improvable. 
It encourages 'free,' unintelligent, unadvised elec- 
tion in its worst form. This so-called 'required' 
system is really a system of the most extended 
election, the election of a whole course in a lump, 
and at the worst possible time, when the pupil 
can know almost nothing about the offering and 



THE ELECTION OF STUDIES I37 

less than at any later time about his own ca- 
pacities. How it can be improved will appear by- 
returning to the question as originally put:— 
Who shall choose, from what offering, in what 
manner ? 

Who shau High-school pupils are incapable of 

choose? choosing very well, though the prob- 

able folly of their choices has often been exag- 
gerated and the value of self-direction in the 
matter should outweigh the harm from a fair 
percentage of wrong choices. Their parents are 
in many cases still less sure to choose for them 
what the common good requires that they study. 
The principal in our supposed school of five 
hundred pupils has not the time, and rarely would 
have the knowledge, to choose for the five hun- 
dred better than they and their parents could do. 
The pupil's teachers of the previous year repre- 
sent usually a better combination of knowledge 
of the pupil's interests and capacities and knowl- 
edge of the offering of the school than the prin- 
cipal; hence the choice sent up from pupil and 
parent, accepted or amended by a committee of 
his teachers of the past year, would probably be 
a moderately good one. But the plain fact is that 
lack of knowledge, wisdom or time will make the 
choices of pupil, parent, principal, teachers, or 
any combination of them, faulty. If right choice 
of studies is as important as the advocates of all 
the different systems of requirements and elec- 
tion agree that it is, then a school of five hundred 



138 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

pupils should provide somebody whose duty it 
will be to utilize the information that parents and 
past teachers have about pupils and the aspira- 
tions of the pupils themselves, to study the 
careers open to high-school pupils of one, two, 
three or four years' standing, the offering of the 
school and the results of past choices, to teach 
pupils to choose wisely, to suggest choices to 
them, and to pass on their suggestions. The sys- 
tem of advisers in vogue in colleges is an ama- 
teurish approach toward such an organization of 
the election of studies as a means of education 
through an expert director of choices. 

Present practice in a twenty-teach- 
From how wide . 

an offering cr high school would often be to re- 

shau choice be quire that at least one eighth of each 
made? . . 

pupil's total curriculum be devoted to 

specified courses in English, and that at least one 

twelfth of it be devoted to specified courses in 

mathematics. Having once made the crucial 

choice of the ^commercial,' or 'classical,' or 

'manual training' curriculum, from half to three 

quarters of it will be prescribed further. 

With a director of choices properly trained to 

make them as rational as may be, much more 

could be left to choice. A pupil might even have 

his entire curriculum chosen for him individually, 

with the result that two pupils in the school 

might have not a single common element in their 

curricula^ I venture to assert that in a school of 



THE ELECTION OF STUDIES 1 39 

five hundred there will be at least one pupil who 
ought not to take any of the courses given in 
English, at least one who ought not to take alge- 
bra, at least one who ought to spend seven 
eighths of his time upon science and technology, 
at least one who ought to spend seven eighths of 
his time on history, economics and the like, and 
at least one who ought to make some apparently 
fantastic combination such as algebra, geometry, 
advanced mathematics, music, first-year Greek, 
second-year Greek. English history, stenography 
and sewing. 

Choices should as a rule be made 

In what 

manner shall gradually, a year or half year's work 
choices be ^^ ^ time, but seriously, a choice being 

made? . . -^ . ° 

fully tried before it is given up. The 
pupil's own preference should be consulted, since 
interest is one of the best symptoms of capacity, 
and capacity for a study is one of the best 
symptoms of fitness to use it for the common 
good. But the pupil whose preferences are given 
weight must himself assume some responsibility 
for the result. To fail in a course suggested by 
himself may properly count more against his 
record than to fail in a course imposed by the 
director of choices. Choice between notoriously 
easy and notoriously hard courses should be elim- 
inated, all courses in the school that carry the 
same credit being made of approximately equal 
difficulty. Choice should include the amount as 



140 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

well as the nature of the work to be done. Some 
pupils can complete the total course in three 
years with less effort per year than others would 
require to complete it in six years. Choice should 
be made in part experimentally to discover the 
pupil's powers, as well as cautiously to prevent 
their waste. Finally, the work of the director 
should be positive in suggesting promising possi- 
bilities, as well as negative in persuading against 
follies. 

/ § 34. The Arrangement of Studies: Sequences 
and Correlations 

The studies which will form a pupil's curric- 
ulum having been chosen, their effectiveness as 
means of educating him depends upon their ar- 
rangement. It is^ for instance, obvious that if the 
anatomy and surgery of the brain are both to be 
studied, the greater gain will come from studying 
the anatomy first. This problem of arrangement 
may be split into problems of sequences and 
problems of contemporaneities, or, as they are 
usually called, correlations. 

The problem Thus the usual Sequence is,— the 

of sequence. ]^^\\^ ^f ^he arithmetic before any of 
the algebra; the surely economical sequence for 
children eight to sixteen is,— the four funda- 
mental operations with integers, fractions and 
decimals before the bulk of the algebra; an in- 
teresting problem in sequence is whether the 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES I4I 

equation form, with a convenient sign for the 
unknown quantity, should not be introduced early 
in the arithmetic* 

The problem Thus composition is often corre- 

of correlation, lated, or put together on the program, 
with the study of literature, the topics about 
which one writes being topics about which one 
has just read in the course on literature. Thus 
the arithmetic and the geography of latitude and 
longitude could well be taught contemporane- 
ously. The first two years' work in reading, in 
writing and in spelling should be closely corre- 
lated. 

Interesting problems in trying to plan better 
arrangements of studies than are now in force 
may be found in contemporaneous study of cer- 
tain topics in arithmetic and manual training, or 
of the history of explorations and certain topics 
in geography ; and in the sequences of Latin and 
French, or of United States money, decimal 
fractions and the metric system. In the last case, 
practice has changed in one generation to study- 
ing United States money before decimals as an 
introduction and aid to understanding them. I 
predict that in another generation parts of the 
metric system will also be taught in the first year 

* The sign might be simply an empty space, the equations 
being such as : — 

7 + 2 = ^ 10 cents = _ nickels 

7 + - = 9 4 38 = - 

9 = 7 + — _ 3S = 12 

9 = _ + 2 I2 = _3S, etc. 



142 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

or two of the course in arithmetic as a means of 
making concrete and significant the place-values, 
units, tens, hundreds, etc., and the function of 
the decimal point. 

Educational theorists have devised numerous 
schemes for the arrangement of the whole pro- 
gram of studies in the elementary school, or for 
the work of this or that year in it. As a sample 
of these we may take the plan of Dr. Van Liew, 
who, following Rein, advocates the choice of his- 
tory as the central and chief element in the 
course of study of the elementary school, its ar- 
rangement roughly in the sequence of chronology, 
and the correlation of all the other studies to it. 
By his plan the sequence in history would be: — 



Grade i 

2 

3 

4 

5 
6 

7 
8 



Fairy stories and folk tales 
Robinson Crusoe 

Indian life and pioneer stories 

Discoveries and explorations 
Settlements and colonial history 
The Revolution and the Constitu- 
tional Period 



The other work of the school would be in each 
year correlated— or, in the term used by this 
author, 'concentrated' — to the topics studied in 
history, in such ways as are suggested by the fol- 
lowing quotations from Dr. Van Liew's ac- 
count:— 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES I43 

^'Literature and Reading.—. . . By a careful se- 
lection of material, the reading of the child can be 
made to bear upon his historical studies. ... In the 
first two years the child is occupied with the task of 
learning to read. Yet even here, as soon as a little 
facility has been attained, concentration can help 
him. 

"Singing.—. . . Here, above all, the national 
songs come into requisition ; their meaning should be 
made the more significant to the child through their 
relation to the historical material. 

"Drawing.—. . . The teacher can, with ease, so 
arrange the drawing lessons of the pupil that they 
present the development of art in its chief epochs, 
parallel to the epochs of history. 

"Geography.—. . . When he hears of the ideas 
and deeds of Columbus, for example, he is at once 
interested in attaining a deeper insight into the 
mathematical relations of the earth. If his mind is 
at this time mature enough, this is the time to open 
the subject. 

"Mathematics and the Sciences.— These branches 
are more difficult to concentrate than those previ- 
ously mentioned. Still, concentration is here possible 
and beneficial. A large share of the work of con- 
centration is accomplished in the instruction, as we 
shall shortly demonstrate. Otherwise these branches 
are to be considered as the bearers of knowledge 
that enter into the service of man. This fact is 
brought to the pupil's consciousness by drawing upon 
the various, already concentrated series for the con- 
crete material of mathematical problems, for exam- 
ple. In the same way some fact that has appeared 
in the historical series with which it is concentrated, 
gives the impulse for scientific investigations. Both 
mathematics and science, however, should find a cen- 
tre for their work in the life and environment of the 



144 "^HE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

child, for here the objective material is found, upon 
which the entire instruction should be based." * 

There have been attempts to find some one 
general principle for arranging the elements of a 
curriculum. Samples of the most useful doc- 
trines of this sort are: — Make the arrangement 
fit the psychology of the student, not the logic of 
the study. Teach a thing when the need for it 
is felt. Teach the tools of thought and skill 
along with, not in advance of, content of intrinsic 
value. 

No one of these doctrines can be followed ab- 
solutely, except perhaps the first, with an elastic 
interpretation. But they are useful warnings 
against (i) arranging a subject for study in the 
way that seems most fit to one who has learned it 
all, (2) arranging a subject independently of 
pupils' interests and motives, and (3) arranging 
a subject as if the pupil could appreciate before- 
hand what the total effect of each stage's work 
would be, and act with perfect wisdom. 

As illustrations of the three doctrines and of 
the errors against which they give warning, we 
may take the arrangement of the systematic 
course in the country's history, of the total course 
in drawing in the elementary school, and of the 
instruction in wood-working. 

To one who knows the history of a nation, the 

* W. Rein, Outlines of Pedagogics, translated by C. C. 
and I. J. Van Liew, 1895, PP- 154-161, passim. 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES I45 

order in which the facts most suitably arrange 
themselves is of course the forward chronologi- 
Psychoiogicai ^^^ order. All text-books within my 
versus logical knowledge unhesitatingly follow that 

order: History. , j. ■, • j 1 j • j 

order. It has, mdeed, seemed mdu- 
bitable to teachers as well as writers of text- 
books that the students should begin where the 
country began. But what has seemed so sure is 
very questionable. The pupil actually begins 
with knowledge of the present condition of his 
own immediate environment plus a variable and 
chaotic acquaintance, through talk and books, 
with facts located vaguely in other places and 
earlier times. Perhaps the story of the voyage of 
the parents of some pupil in the class should pre- 
cede that of the voyage of Columbus; perhaps 
the date when some house in the town was built, 
what was there before it, and what was there in 
the boyhood of the grandfather of some child in 
the class, should be studied before the dates of 
the first colonies. Perhaps to work back from 
the Philippines to Alaska, to the annexation of 
Texas, to the Louisiana Purchase, in a study of 
the territory of our nation to-day, would be more 
instructive than to begin with the Spanish, Eng- 
lish, French and Dutch settlements. The educa- 
tional value of finding the causes of what is, and 
then the causes of these causes, is so very much 
superior to the spurious reasoning which comes 
from explaining a record already known, or pre- 
tending to prophesy what the wisest men of the 



146 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

past could not prophesy, that the arrangement of 
the first part of the course in history in the in- 
verse temporal order, leaving the forward chron- 
icle till later, deserves serious consideration. 

I have purposely chosen a case where the doc- 
trine suggests something beyond, and contrary to, 
even the best present school practice, so that the 
reader may be sure that the doctrine is more than 
a repeating in words of what common sense al- 
ready teaches us to do in fact. Cases that are 
clearer, but that show present practice catching 
up to theory, are:— (i) introducing a student to 
a foreign language, not by a systematic study of 
its grammar, but by simple hearing, speaking and 
reading; and (2) replacing the description of our 
globe, and the proofs that it is a globe, by simple 
geographical studies of the school-room, yard and 
neighborhood. Here what seemed, to the one al- 
ready acquainted with the subject, to be its logical 
beginning has been found a very poor beginning 
for the student. 

Drawing may tell facts, as in a 
riveT^^^ map, a floor-plan of a house, or the 
response to picture of certain neurones and their 
Drawing! connections shown in Figure 4. It 
may represent objects, giving to the 
eyes something more or less like the impression 
they would get from the object itself, as in the 
drawing of Figure 5. It may produce a purely 
esthetic effect, as in Figure 6. These three feat- 
ures of drawing may be called informing, du- 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES I47 




Fig. 4. 
Fig. 4. Illustrations of informing or illustrative draw- 
ing—of drawing used as a language to tell facts. The 
drawing at the left shows schematically the arrange- 
ment of the neurones which conduct stimuli from the 
olfactory sense-organs in the nose. The drawing does 
not present the four sets of neurones as they would 
appear to the eye, but simply tells the essential facts 
about their arrangement in the brain. The drawing at 
the right tells similarly the story of the arrangement 
of the neurones which conduct stimuli from the sense- 
organs in the skin up to the cerebrum and cerebellum. 



148 



THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 




Fig. 5. 
Fig. 5. An Illustration of representative drawing. 



^!£HS£S^£HS£HS 






Fig. 6. 
Fig. 6. An illustration of decorative drawing. 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES I49 

plicating and beautifying; or illustration, repre- 
sentation and decoration. 

By far the commonest, earliest and most po- 
tent of the corresponding interests in drawing is 
that in informing or telling facts by it. Drawing 
is to children first of all a language. Figures 7, 
8 and 9 display this interest fairly. They tell 
their stories, but show little or no concern about 
representing the objects concerned as they would 
appear to the eye, or producing anything beauti- 
ful. This sort of drawing leads naturally, with 
improvement, to map-making, mechanical draw- 
ing and schematic illustrations in science ; but it 
leads to representative drawing only in conse- 
quence of the special need of identifying an ob- 
ject very exactly, as in portraits, by giving to the 
eye the impression the object would give; and it 
leads to artistic drawing only in consequence of 
the need of giving the observer a sense of beauty. 

The promising arrangement of a course in 
drawing in the elementary school is then to begin 
with the 'natural,' fact-telling drawing; to de- 
velop it along such lines as drawing maps, plans, 
illustrations of the facts learned in elementary 
science, history and the like ; and to introduce 
representative drawing by first showing the need 
for it, — as when the story of objects, one back of 
another at various distances, needs perspective 
drawing to tell it well, or when the story that this 
is a disk and that a ball needs shading to tell it 
well. The artistic drawing or creation of beauty 



150 



THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 




Fig. 7. 

Figs. 7, 8, and 9 illustrate the common lack of interest 
in young children in the representative or decorative 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES 



151 




Fig. 8. 

uses of drawing— their use of it simply as a language 
to tell facts. Figs. 7 and 8 are after Kerschensteiner, 
Die Entwickelung der Zeichnerischen Begabung, page 



THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 




Fig. 9. 

59 and page 333. Fig. 9 is after Levinstein, Kinderseich- 
nungen, Tab. 47 and Tab. 22. 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF STUDIES 1 53 

with the pencil would begin with simple designs 
to decorate real objects which the pupils wished 
to have beautiful. Each element of technique 
would be taught similarly when the effective tell- 
ing of the story made the need for added tech- 
nique realizable. 

The traditional arrangement in drawing neg- 
lected or even went dead against interest and 
nature, forcing the pupil to copy cubes, cylinders, 
cups and saucers in representative drawing at the 
very beginning, compelling exactness of outline 
when what the children cared to tell with the 
pencil did not in the least require it, putting illus- 
trative, schematic and mechanical drawing after, 
instead of before, representative and decorative 
drawing, and teaching each thing in technique be- 
fore—often long before— the pupil felt any need 
for it. As a result, children who might have 
become fair draughtsmen with a permanent in- 
terest in the use of the pencil, drew painfully 
sad-looking chaira, buttercups and vases while 
they were in school, and nothing at all thereafter. 
Some of my readers probably had 

Technique . . , , . 

through in school a course m wood-workmg 

content: which bee:an with the description of 

Wood-working. , ° . , . , 

the tools, contmued with an account 

of the way to use each, and ended with actually 
making something. Books to fit such a plan are 
still to be found. But experience has taught 
what correct principles could have taught in ad- 
vance, that, at least for boys and girls in the ele- 



154 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

mentary school, the nature and use of a tool are 
best taught in connection with getting some re- 
sult of intrinsic value with it. Similarly the ex- 
pert teachers of physics are now insisting that its 
instruments of precision shall be introduced by 
their service in getting information of value in 
itself at the time, not with a mere promise that 
by learning to make exact measurements one will 
sometime get significant facts. 

§ 35. Men and Women as Teachers 

There is occasionally serious debate concern- 
ing the American practice of choosing women so 
exclusively to conduct the school education of 
children from six to fourteen, and so extensively 
to do the same work for boys from fifteen to 
nineteen. This practice is odious to many intel- 
ligent men and some women in this country, and 
is directly contrary to the practice in the other 
large nation whose devotion to education is most 
notable — Germany. 

The question It would be unwisc to review the 
defined. arguments pro and con, since they are 

rich in guesswork and poor in fact, and almost 
universally ignore the decisive question. This is 
not, "Which is the best educational means, a hun- 
dred men or a hundred women, ten men and ninety 
women, etc., etc.?", but, "Which is the better 
educational means, the hundred men that can be 
hired for x dollars, or the hundred women, or 



MEN AND WOMEN AS TEACHERS 1 55 

the ten men and ninety women, that can be hired 
for the same price ?" It will be wise to get in mind 
certain facts that bear on the answer to this latter 
question, or series of questions, in the United 
States taken as a whole. 

It is a series of questions, because the answer 
may not be the same for a salary of five hundred 
dollars a year and for one of five thousand, or 
for the education of pupils six to ten and for 
the education of pupils sixteen to twenty. The 
question is put concerning the United States only, 
because the facts deciding its answer might be 
very different in Germany or China. It is put 
concerning the United States taken as a whole, 
because the relevant facts might be very different 
in Massachusetts and in Mississippi ; space is 
lacking to answer it separately for divisions of 
the nation. Facts toward the answers rather than 
the answers themselves are given, because the 
student of education to-day needs especially to 
form the habit of studying facts and evidence 
rather than opinions and conclusions. 
Women not '^^^ choice of women over men has 

chosen by not been a matter of sentiment, en- 
sm. thusiasm or theory. Those who in 
the past turned the elementary schools over to 
women were, and those who to-day are turning 
the high schools over to women are, men who 
did it and do it against their own sentiments and 
theories. With few exceptions, the choice of a 
woman rather than a man has meant, and still 



156 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

means, that the woman is so obviously able to do 
the work in question better, according to the 
standards of the time, that she is chosen in spite 
of sex prejudice. Superintendents and school 
boards are eager to get men to teach, but their 
sense of educational duty will not let them get 
the men who apply. 

Kor by lowering The choice of women over men has 
standards. j^q^ been a matter of lowered stand- 
ards of academic or professional training. On 
the contrary, there is evidence that raising the 
requirements quickly increases the percentage of 
women among those securing positions in ele- 
mentary or secondary schools. The change from 
men to women in this country seems to have gone 
with general devotion to education and with uni- 
versally accepted symptoms of educational ad- 
vance. The cases of Massachusetts from 1840 to 
1880 and of North Carolina during the past 
decade may be taken as samples. 

The great educational advances made by Mas- 
sachusetts during the second third of the nine- 
teenth century were accompanied by a marked in- 
crease in the proportion of women teachers. 
When Massachusetts was leading the progressive 
movements toward compulsory education, free 
high schools, systematic supervision and the 
training of teachers, she was also in advance of 
all other States in increasing the proportion of 
women chosen as teachers. The establishment of 
normal schools, the requirement of graduation 



MEN AND WOMEN AS TEACHERS 1 57 

from them for the better positions, and the later 
requirement of high-school graduation before en- 
trance to the normal schools — all have been ac- 
companied by an increase in the number of 
women teachers. So by 1871 only one teacher in 
eight in Massachusetts was a man, whereas else- 
where in this country three out of eight teachers 
were men. 

During the past ten years one of the most ex- 
traordinary records of educational advance has 
been made by North Carolina. In less than ten 
years (from the school year '99-'oo to that of 
'08-^09) this State increased its school property 
fivefold, nearly trebled the amount paid (per 
capita) for education, lengthened the school year 
from 70 to 100 days, and increased the number 
of children (per thousand children five to eigh- 
teen years old) in attendance upon schools by 
over half. The great public zeal and devotion 
which were aroused during this period constitute 
one of the most gratifying features in the educa- 
tional history of the new South. Now within 
this same period the proportion of women teach- 
ers rose from half to seven-tenths, the increase 
being far more rapid than during any similar 
period in the history of that State, and more 
rapid than in any other State during the same 
period. 

Of course it is not to be inferred that the 
choice of women rather than men as educational 
agents is a sure symptom of educational advance, 



158 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

but it does seem certain that choosing them is 
far from implying any cheapening or degrading 
of the office of the schools. 

The prophecies of evil effects from 

Unverified , . . . . . , , . „ 

apprehensions the lemmization of the teachmg staii 
of danger from Qf elementary and secondary schools 

feminization. 

that have been made have not been 
verified by the facts. One of them has indeed 
been definitely disproved. That is the opinion 
that the turning of the sex-balance in the teaching 
staff of high schools toward a larger proportion 
of women has caused, and will cause, a similar 
turning of the sex-balance in the student body. 
Boys, it is said, will inevitably forsake a second- 
ary school taught largely by women. But the in- 
crease in the proportion of boys in those high 
schools which changed (in the ten years from 
1896 to 1906) toward a larger proportion of men 
teachers was only very slightly greater than in 
those schools where women displaced men. A 
change from half men and half women as teach- 
ers to one third men and two thirds women (for 
instance, from five men and five women to five 
men and ten women) is accompanied by a change 
from half boys and half girls as students to not 
more than 47>^% boys and 52^% girls. What 
little difference appeared was probably the cause, 
rather than the effect, of the increase in the male- 
ness of the teaching staff. That is, when for any 
reason more boys attend a high school, the very 
fact may be used as an argument to induce the 



MEN AND WOMEN AS TEACHERS 1 59 

school board to appoint a man rather than a 
woman. Conversely, when for any reason there 
is a large increase in the enrollment of girls. 

A study involving 184,000 students showed 
that the proportion of boys is less than four per 
cent, greater in high schools where from forty to 
ninety-one per cent, of the teachers are men than 
in high schools where from sixty-five to one hun- 
dred per cent, of the teachers are women. Here, 
too, the slight correspondence found may be due 
to the disposition of school officers to adapt the 
sex-balance of the teaching staff to that of the 
student body. 

The only clear probability of harm done by the 
present use of educational funds to hire women 
rather than men lies in the prevention of gifted 
and devoted women from having and rearing 
children of their own flesh and blood. Effective- 
ness from the narrow point of view of school- 
room education may be consistent with injury, 
small or great, to the life of the country as a 
whole. It is certainly risky to have over half of 
the graduates of women's colleges remain child- 
less by profession, even if they spend their time 
working for the children of others. It is likely 
that the world loses more by the absence from 
motherhood of women teachers who might other- 
wise marry than by the absence from the teach- 
ing profession of the men who would have their 
places. 

This probability of harm is of course curable in 



l6o THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

many other ways than by driving women out of 
teaching. Teaching is not inconsistent with hav- 
ing and rearing children. A mother of children 
could spend her time in teaching as well as in 
superintending servants, cooking meals, mending 
clothes, or washing dishes. 

superior women ^est any reader forget the original 
versus inferior question upon which these various 
™®°' facts bear, I repeat that the practically 

decisive question is of the men and women avail- 
able at a given cost. It would almost certainly 
be a gain for the teachers of boys and girls to in- 
clude a larger proportion of men if the best men 
would do that work with equal zeal. It would 
probably be a gain if men of the same station 
among men that our women teachers have among 
women would do the work with equal zeal. But 
whether the men obtainable with the funds in 
hand are equal in capacity or interest to the 
women is the decisive question. One may regret 
the fact that something like half of the boys and 
girls in city schools never have a man as teacher, 
and yet not regret their not having the particular 
men who could be got, at the same salaries, to 
replace the women now teaching the upper gram- 
mar grades. One may wish that a larger number 
of gifted men would be moved, by zeal for teach- 
ing young people, to work at a small salary in 
elementary and high schools, and yet not wish 
that school officers would appoint men as teach- 
ers for no other reason than that they were men. 



J 



PERSONAL AND TEXT-BOOK TEACHING l6l 



§ 36. Personal versus Text-book Teaching 

Personal teaching is commonly largely oral; 

text-book teaching, save in the rare cases where 

phonoe^raphic records are used, ap- 

speech, facial peals to the eye alone. Oral mstruc- 

expression and ^[q^ j^^g ^j^g advantage, in the case of 
gesture. . . , 

little children, of relief from the work 

of interpreting the little-known visual symbols 
and of the stronger appeal of words heard over 
black marks seen. Instruction through books has 
the advantage that each pupil can think at his 
own rate, get the fact over and over again as he 
needs, test himself point by point as he goes 
along, and make notes of his difficulties for later 
use in questioning the teacher. Book-teaching 
gains in relative value as students, by more train- 
ing, become used to getting ideas from print. 
If just the same work were to be read aloud 
monotonously and given in print, there can be 
little doubt that second-grade children would 
profit more by having it given by speech and 
college students by having it in print. 

The intonation, facial expression and gesture, 
and the illustrative actions which are accompani- 
ments of oral teaching, commonly add interest 
and excite to useful mental activity, the more so 
the younger the children are and the less gifted 
at reading. These human accessories, even when 
unpleasant to see and hear, still win attention 



l62 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

from most men as books do not. It is only the 
specially facile reader, who also is intellectually 
beyond the need of another's intonation and 
bodily expression, that prefers to read rather 
than hear a story, and to read men's books rather 
than hear them talk. 

Detauand ^^^ teachers and text-books rarely 

consequent do give anything like the same treat- 
length. ment of a topic. The teacher's per- 

sonally managed treatment is almost always 
longer, easier, more determined by special ex- 
igencies of the occasion, and characterized by a 
selection and treatment of facts such as no text- 
book displays. 

Length is an impressive difference. The actual 
facts, principles and applications given in a col- 
lege course of ninety hours can often be printed 
in a book that a capable reader could get through 
in nine hours. The extra eighty hours must have 
a value equal to eighty hours of such study, ex- 
periment, problem-solving and the like as could 
be guided by printed directions, if it is to be 
justifiable. One reason why children seem to 
learn so much better from personal teaching than 
from books is that many of them spend much 
time in class-meetings and little time upon books. 
Comprehensi- The same teacher would almost 
bUity. never make up a text-book with so 

easy questions, so much repetition, so many illus- 
trations, and so full explanations as he gives per- 
sonally to a class. He would, for one thing, be 



PERSONAL AND TEXT-BOOK TEACHING 163 

ashamed to do so, for the conventional book, even 
for Httle children, is a rather ^dignified affair. 
Moreover, the book would be very, very long. 
And it is unconventional to print a book, say of 
300,000 words, for an eighth-grade class in his- 
tory, in addition to all the regular historical read- 
ing prescribed. Finally, the book would be full 
of directions to do this and that, to work out this 
or that problem, to write out such and such an 
outHne; and it is unconventional to print such a 
mixture. These conventions are unfortunate, for 
easy courses in print are needed. There is no 
wisdom in the notion that a text-book is to give 
the subject-matter of a course, but in so difficult 
a form that every teacher must illustrate and ex- 
plain it at great length ! 

Text-books, if written by experts 
Adaptability. . . J i^ 

m education, are likely to be the re- 
sult of thorough consideration of the general 
facts of the learning process in the case of the 
subject in question, and so to be better adapted 
to the general run of pupils than all save ex- 
ceptionally gifted personal teaching. Personally 
managed treatment of a subject is, in the nature 
of the case, more sensitive to the special situa- 
tions presented by a given group of pupils — their 
previous knowledge of it and of related facts, 
their varying abilities, and other individual char- 
acteristics. This feature may result in either gain 
or loss in efficiency, according to whether the 
teacher adapts the treatment to the special ex- 



164 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

igencies without neglecting fundamental matters, 
or, on the contrary, sacrifices general facts in 
favor of local and temporary interests, the 
majority of the class in favor of the specially 
able or specially deficient, or the proper balance 
of training in favor of special discipline to fit his 
own whims. 

Guidance in Text-books often State what habits 

habit-formation are to be formed without giving the 

reasoning. ^^^^^^ exercises in forming them, but 
this is not a necessary feature of printed matter. 
Text-books on geography, history, spelling, Eng- 
lish composition, grammar, economics, philoso- 
phy or sociology could, by the exercise of enough 
ingenuity, provide for the actual formation of 
habits in the way that books of examples to be 
done in arithmetic, or sentences to be translated 
in Latin, or experiments to be done in chemistry 
do. 

Text-books still less often guide the pupil to 
think out conclusions himself so far as he can. 
They commonly give the results of reasoning, 
and perhaps problems demanding reasoning, but 
they do not so manage the latter that the pupil is 
at each stage helped just enough to lead him to 
help himself as much as is economically possible. 
They do not, that is, usually get the full value of 
the questioning, 'developing,' inductive, and ex- 
perimental methods of teaching.* Nor do they 
usually give work in deductive thinking so ar- 

* These methods will be described in the next two chapters. 



PERSONAL AND TEXT-BOOK TEACHING 165 

ranged as to stimulate the pupil to make and test 
inferences himself. 

This fact is partly due to conventional customs. 
But there is also a real difficulty, due to the fact 
that pupils cannot be trusted to follow directions. 
Books could be written giving data, directions 
for experiments and problems with the data, and 
questions about the inferences. The student 
could be instructed to read each helping piece of 
information, suggestive question and the like 
only after he had spent a certain time in trying 
to do for himself what he was directed to do. 
Such books might be more effective than all 
but the best tenth of personal teaching, if stu- 
dents would faithfully try as directed before 
reading ahead for the helps given. But they will 
usually greedily use up all the helps first. If, by 
a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could 
be so arranged that only to him who had done 
what was directed on page one would page two 
become visible, and so on, much that now re- 
quires personal instruction could be managed by 
print. Books to be given out in loose sheets, a 
page or so at a time, and books arranged so that 
the student only suffers if he misuses them, 
should be worked out in many subjects. Even 
under the limitation of the natural tendency of 
children to get results in the easiest way, a text- 
book can do much more than be on the one hand 
a mere statement of the results of reasoning such 
as an ordinary geography or German grammar is, 



l66 THE MEANS OF EDUCATION 

or on the other hand a mere statement of prob- 
lems, such as the ordinary arithmetic or German 
reader is. 

From the point of view of interest in work, 
personal teaching is usually more sociable, but 
the difference between it and text-book teaching 
in this particular could be reduced by skill in or- 
ganizing the latter. 

The evils of rote-memorizing or merely ab- 
sorptive study on the part of pupils, and of lack 
of progress on the part of teachers, which are 
attributed to text-books, are not at all necessary 
consequences of their use. It is easy to make it 
more satisfying to pupils to understand than to 
memorize, and to think than merely to read. A 
lazy or stupid teacher will not be cured so well by 
being deprived of all text-book aids in teaching 
a subject as by being given a dozen such and re- 
quired to show that he uses them all well. 
The misuse of Finally, many of the evils attrib- 
text-books. y|-g(| ^q ^j^g over-use of text-books are 

really due to misunderstanding and misuse of 
them. In the case of a good text-book there is 
a reason for every item and for its position in 
the whole. Too few teachers know the exact 
purpose of the text-books they use. Too often a 
teacher uses a section of a book much as a savage 
might use a coat to cover his legs ; or as a child 
uses a saw to cut a string, scissors to cut a board, 
and a padlock as a bracelet. 

On the whole, the improvement of printed di- 



PERSONAL AND TEXT-BOOK TEACHING 167 

rections, statements of facts, exercise books and 
the like is as important as the improvement of 
the powers of teachers themselves to diagnose 
the condition of pupils and to guide their activi- 
ties by personal means. Great economies are 
possible by printed aids, and personal comment 
and question should be saved to do what only it 
can do. A human being should not be wasted in 
doing what forty sheets of paper or two phono- 
graphs can do. Just because personal teaching 
is precious and can do what books and apparatus 
can not, it should be saved for its peculiar work. 
The best teacher uses books and appliances as 
well as his own insight, sympathy, and mag- 
netism. 



chapter ix 
Methods in Education 

By a Method in education is meant the way in 
which a teacher puts educative agents and means 
The problems to work Upon human nature so as to 
defined. produce some desired result. Thus a 

book may be used as matter to be understood, or 
to be understood and remembered, or to be merely 
memorized without understanding, or to be un- 
derstood, remembered and used in the solution 
of problems. Thus, to produce the result — knowl- 
edge of certain facts in chemistry — the teacher 
may describe the facts orally, or have students 
read printed descriptions of them in a text-book, 
or demonstrate the facts by experiments, or get 
the students to perform the experiments them- 
selves. 

The variety of methods which one may use to 
attain even any one given result is often very 
great, since in the last analysis every difference 
in the teacher's facial expression or voice, or in 
the wording of his statements and questions, is a 
difference in method. The variety possible in 
connection with all the different results which 
education seeks is practically infinite. It is, in- 

i68 



METHODS OUTLINED 169 

deed, the task of the science of education to study 
the effect of everything that any teacher can do 
upon every person to whom anything can be 
done. 

There are, however, certain more or less fun- 
damental differences in methods of teaching 
which are specially worth study, because the facts 
and problems which they present concern the 
teaching of many different things to many dif- 
ferent kinds of pupils. Expert opinions on edu- 
cation have thus much to say about :— 

Methods for drill or habituation. 
Methods for reasoning or analysis. 
Realistic versus verbal teaching. 
Laboratory or experimental methods. 
Inductive methods. 
Teaching by action and dramatization. 

The lecture method. 

Object-lessons and demonstrations. 

Telling versus questioning : The Socratic method. 

'Developing' methods. 

Education by self-activity. 

The method of discovery. 

Teaching pupils how to study. 

Example and precept. 

Imperative, persuasive and suggestive methods. 
Evasive, suppressive and substitutive methods. 
Reward and punishment. 



170 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

Some knowledge of the facts and problems re- 
ferred to by this list is a necessity for under- 
standing books and articles about teaching, and 
an advantage for understanding one's own work 
in the class-room. 



§ 37. Methods for Habituation and Methods 
for Analysis 

To connect the response 14 to the situation, 
'How many are p and ^f, is economically done 
by one set of methods. A different set of methods 
is needed to give pupils the power to respond ap- 
propriately to I, 5, 7, 17, 31 or any number divisi- 
ble by no integer save itself and one, or to pick 
out the essential elements in such a problem as : — 
(y32 of %)-f-(%6 of %). In forming the habit 
of responding by obediently doing what a parent 
or a teacher asks, one, set of methods is efficient. 
A very different set of methods must be used to 
develop insight by which the essential good or 
evil in any course of conduct can be known. 
Methods for The methods for habituation may 

habituation, j^g considered first in the case where 
the pupil is eager to do his best to form the habit. 
We have then: — 

The Law of Impetus : — James, following Bain, 
says: — "/n the acquisition of a nezv habit or the 
leaving off of an old one, we must take care to 
launch ourselves with as strong and decided in- 
itiative as possible/' More briefly. Make the new 



HABITUATION AND ANALYSIS I /I 

connection with full energy and zeal. The law 
of impetus is a corollary of the general laws of 
exercise and effect — that connections persist 
longest when they are made vigorously and with 
resulting satisfaction. Hence the law of impetus 
really applies not only to the beginning, but also 
to all stages of the formation of a habit. Zeal, 
interest, going at things with a will, are useful 
throughout. 

The second is the Law of Constancy :— As 
James puts it, ''Never suffer an exception to 
occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your 
life." In Bain's words, "Never lose a battle." 
There are two reasons for the rule of constancy. 
One is that if a person lets himself deviate from 
the habit under certain circumstances he may fail 
to draw the line as carefully next time, and soon 
come to deviate from it under any or all circum- 
stances. The other is that one failure in ten may 
cause a loss in self-confidence, not only of one 
tenth, but even of half. 

The third is the Law of Repetition : Give the 
habit exercise. Seize the very first possible op- 
portunity and every opportunity to act in accord 
with the habit, and make opportunities. The aim 
of this repetition is, of course, to fix the tendency 
so that it will persist without further special 
effort. 

These three principles lead to certain other 
rules when the habit is to be formed under the 
guidance of a teacher. The law of impetus 



172 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

teaches the importance of securing the pupil's 
interest at the start and throughout, and of utiHz- 
These three ^^§' wherever practicable, the energy 

laws in the of some instinct or previous habit as 
class-room. , 

a means to the new end. 

The law of constancy, the desirability of per- 
mitting no reversions, backslidings, or mistakes, 
leads to two precepts, especially in the case of 
habits in which the response sought is not so 
easy, so pleasurable at the time, or so much in 
harmony with the pupil's general nature, as is the 
response to be avoided, i. Give closest super- 
vision in the early stages of the habit. For ex- 
ample, in teaching French or German, during the 
first month have no word pronounced by a pupil 
until he has two or three times heard it pro- 
nounced by the teacher. 2. In habits of thinking, 
secure accuracy first, speed later. 

The law of repetition brings up the problem of 
the amount of special training with a habit, of 
what teachers call 'drill,' which is needed in any 
given case, and of the way this training is to be 
distributed over the series of days during which 
drill is given. For any one habit in any one per- 
son there is an optimum amount of drill. Less 
than this optimum leaves the habit insecure, un- 
trustworthy and so of little use ; for example, to 
add correctly nine times out of ten is of little use. 
More than this optimum is wasteful, for very 
great training makes Httle or no difference in the 
habit. For example, after a child comes to write 



HABITUATION AND ANALYSIS 1 73 

as well as the samples under 15 on Plate III (fol- 
lowing page 214), it takes many, many hours of 
practice to add one small degree of improvement, 
and this addition is of little use to anybody. 

For any one habit in any one person there is 
some one best distribution of time over the series. 
For one habit or set of habits it may be best to 
give ten drills of twenty minutes for the first 
week, ten drills of ten minutes the second week, 
ten drills of five minutes the third week, five 
drills of eight minutes the fourth week, and one 
drill of ten minutes each week for three weeks, 
and then one drill of ten minutes a month for 
four months. Or it may be best to distribute the 
460 minutes in a very different way. Special in- 
vestigations are needed to find out for various 
habits the amount of drill that is most advan- 
tageous and the best distribution of it. 
Four rules of Four Other rulcs for teaching in 

common sense, ^j^g ^ase of habit-formation are worth 
remembering. They should be obvious deduc- 
tions from the laws of exercise and effect, but are 
often neglected. They are: — 

Form habits. Do not expect them to create 
themselves. Do not, for example, expect that 
ready control of % of 24 = 4, % of 27 = 9, % of 
30 n: 6, etc., will create itself, once the pupil 
knows that 24-^6=4, 27-^-3=:9 and 30-^5=6. 
Only in the case of the brighter pupils will it do 
so. Do not expect that a pupil who has, in thou- 
sands of divisions by integers, always got an an- 



174 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

swer smaller than the number divided, will readily 
learn, in dividing by a fraction less than one, to ex- 
pect an answer larger than the number divided. 

Bezvare of forming a habit which must he 
broken later. Thus it is risky or wasteful, or 
both, to have all silent letters crossed out in the 
reading-matter for the first and second grades, 
and to have all the sentences restricted each to 
one line. 

Do not form tzvo or more habits when one will 
do as well. It is, for instance, better to use the 
same habit of placing the quotient in short divi- 
sion that will be required in long division, and to 
use a habit which will serve for extending the 
quotient to any given decimal. Thus 4 | 648 is 
preferable to 4 | 648. 

Other things being equal, have a habit formed 
in the way in which it is to he used. Since the 
forms of adjectives in German or Latin are al- 
ways to be used with nouns, they should be 
learned with nouns. To decline vir bonus, viri 
boni, etc., is far better than to decline bonus, 
bona, bonum, etc. 

Methods for The principles of method in the 

analysis. ^x^gg q£ analyzing out an element and 

giving power to respond correctly to it, regard- 
less of what new situation it may be in, are hard- 
er to appreciate and apply. They are : — 

I. Know what the element is that the pupil is 
to be able to respond to, and what response he is 
to make to it. Do not, for instance, expect to 



HABITUATION AND ANALYSIS 1/5 

teach a seven-year-old child to respond to the 
exact characteristic by which % of i, % of i, % of 
anything, ^%, and .026 are all rated as fractions. 

2. Dissociate the element. Do not expect it to 
emerge into clear thought of itself. Do not, for 
example, expect that a pupil will be able to re- 
spond to the fact of acceleration because you 
have told him that it is 'change in velocity.' 

3. Where possible, present the element by itself 
before presenting the gross total situations in 
which it inheres. 

4. Where the element cannot exist apart from 
concomitants : — 

a. Begin ivith cases in which it is clear and 

impressive. 

b. Have the pupil compare these with atten- 

tion directed toward their elements. 

c. Have him contrast zvith them cases similar, 

save in the absence of the element. 

5. Provide an instructive name for the element. 

6. Have the pupil respond to the element in 
new situations. 

The explanation, illustration and application of 
these principles make up a large part of the books 
on methods of teaching. 

§ 38. Verbal and Realistic Methods: The 
Laboratory Method 

After the experts in getting knowledge dis- 
covered that it was far more profitable to ex- 



176 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

amine real things and observe how they did work 
than merely to speculate and argue about them, 
Words versus and that it was unsafe to trust the 
things. authority of any man's opinion with- 

out testing it by its accordance with facts in 
nature, the experts in education also began to 
advocate teaching by direct study of things and 
experimental verification of opinions. 

To hear or read that an island is a body of 
land entirely surrounded by water, or that the 
subjunctive mood in Latin is used to express an 
exhortation, concession or command; a wish; a 
question of doubt or deliberation; purpose, re- 
sult, characteristic, and so on, is not to be taught 
what an island is or what Latin subjunctives do. 
Words about things may or may not produce the 
desired tendencies to respond correctly to the 
things themselves. There are certain elements of 
knowledge, certain tendencies to response, which 
can be got only by direct experience of real 
things, qualities, events and relations. This fact 
may, and should, now seem axiomatic, but many 
teachers in practice forget it, and teachers a few 
centuries ago rarely thought of it. The increased 
use of methods whereby the realities are ex- 
amined and experimented with as well as talked 
about, enormously improved the teaching of 
mathematics, science, history and even language. 

The wise advocate of realistic methods would 
not, however, assert that verbal methods were 
always wrong, or that one should always provide 



LABORATORY METHODS 1 77 

a pupil as nearly as possible with the direct expe- 
rience of the reality itself. Different degrees of 
Degrees of reality may be desirable, — the actual 
reauty. thing, a model of it, a set of sec- 

tions of it, a photograph of it, a rough sketch or 
map of it, a sketch showing one feature of it, — 
according to the previous experience of the pupil 
to be taught and the result in him that the teacher 
intends to secure. It would be absurd to teach 
the meaning of %, %, %, %, %, % and % without 
real objects and groups to be really divided, but 
it would be equally absurd to teach the meaning 
of .6542 by dividing real objects and groups each 
into ten thousand parts and counting out six 
thousand five hundred and forty-two of them. 
Laboratoiyor ^he so-called laboratory methods 
experimental of teaching represent the combination 
™^ ^* of the realistic presentation of facts 

with the observation and verification of prin- 
ciples by the pupil's own experimentation. A 
laboratory is a place to work with things as well 
as opinions ; experimental methods of teaching 
are methods of discovery and verification by in- 
structive questioning of nature itself. The 
essence of the laboratory and experimental 
methods of teaching is to give as much care and 
ingenuity to providing instructive experiences of 
things as to providing instructive verbal accounts 
of them, to direct what the pupil does as well as 
what he hears and sees and says, and to teach 
him to extend, criticize and refine his ideas by 



178 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

appeals to fact as well as to some accepted 
opinion. 

Laboratory or experimental methods of teach- 
ing depend less upon extensive equipment of in- 
struments and complicated arrangements for con- 
trolling nature in experiments, than upon the at- 
titude of open-mindedness and sincere curiosity. 
A teacher may be as prejudiced, dogmatic and 
pedantic with a thousand dollars' worth of brass 
instruments as with a text-book; and a scientific 
teacher can make a pail of water, a hot-air stove 
and a school yard the means of first-rate experi- 
ments. Indeed, the instructiveness of an experi- 
ment is commonly in a rough proportion to the 
simplicity of the apparatus used. 

Like any reform in education, the 

Their misuse. , , , n- 1 

laboratory method has suiiered at the 

hands of its friends, by being used indiscrimi- 
nately and by being over-used. It is not scientific 
to spend two hours in learning by the manipula- 
tion of instruments something vv^hich could be 
better learned in two minutes by thought. Wash- 
ing bottles, connecting electric wires and putting 
away test-tubes, though doubtless useful tasks in 
connection with scientific housewifery, are not 
magical sources of intellectual growth. Nor is it 
safe to disregard zuhat is taught, so long as it is 
taught as an exercise in scientific method. A 
laboratory should teach facts important in them- 
selves. It is disastrous to scientific habits in the 
young for them to find repeatedly that elaborate 



INDUCTIVE METHODS 179 

experimental work brings at the end some trivial 
or meaningless result. ^^^-^ 



§ 39. Inductive Methods 

Inductive reasoning is such thought about par- 
ticular facts or opinions as results in a more gen- 
eral fact or opinion. Thus from the study of 
particular cases of malaria, one may come to 
think that cases of malaria in general are due to 
night air — or that they are due to hot climate — 
or that they are due to the bite of certain 
mosquitos. Thus, from the study of particular 
samples of water, one may come to think that 
water consists of oxygen and hydrogen always in 
the same proportions, or reach various other gen- 
eral truths or errors. Inductive methods in teach- 
ing are methods of aiding pupils to get general 
truths from particular facts, and of increasing 
their power to do so. 

Essential Successful inductive methods (i) 

features. make the issue or problem to be 

solved clear, (2) present enough and representa- 
tive particulars, (3) arrange these conveniently 
for examination, help the pupil (4) to compare 
them from instructive points of view and (5) to 
see the feature they have in common by con- 
trasting with them other particulars like them 
save in that feature, (6) stimulate him to frame 
a generalization or hypothesis or answer to the 
problem as a result of the comparison and con- 



l8o METHODS IN EDUCATION 

trast, (7) lead him to verify this rule or hypothe- 
sis or answer by the test of other facts or by 
appeal to trustworthy authority, and (8) prac- 
tice him in using it in new applications. 

These essential factors are often grouped as 
five successive steps in teaching — Preparation, 
Presentation, Comparison, Generalization and 
Application — called the Formal Steps in Instruc- 
tion. Under Preparation would come (i) mak- 
ing the issue or problem to be solved clear and 
putting the pupils in a proper position to attack 
it. Under Presentation would come (2) present- 
ing enough representative particulars and (3) 
arranging them conveniently for study. Under 
Comparison would come (4) and (5) — helping 
the pupils to compare these facts from instructive 
points of view and to bring out their essential 
feature by contrast with other facts like them 
save in the absence of this feature. Generaliza- 
tion and Application refer to (6) and (8) above. 
Verification should be provided for in connection 
with Application, or be added in the sequence, 
between Generalization and Application, 
niustrations of Suppose, for example, that one is 
these. |-Q teach multiplication by a two-place 

number by inductive methods. ( i ) The issue or 
problem to be solved would be made clear by 
setting such questions as:— An army is made up 
of 34 battalions. Each battalion has 216 men. 
To find a quick way of telling how many men 
there are in the army? (2) Several such prob- 



INDUCTIVE METHODS l8l 

lems should be solved as samples lest the pupils 
think of the procedure as applicable to only the 
one problem. They should represent carrying 
and not carrying in the partial products, and the 

GOO OGOO GOO 

forms GOO goo and gggg , lest the pupils get 

some other feature in place of the right-hand 
figure of each partial product under the figure 
used in multiplying to get it. The various diffi- 
culties that come from g in the multiplier or mul- 
tiplicand would, however, be left for later sepa- 
rate treatment. (3) These examples may be 
made convenient for examination by repeating 
the 216 in the multiplicand, and otherwise reduc- 
ing the difficulty of getting the partial products 
themselves, so that attention can be given to plac- 
ing them. For example:— 

2x6 216 216 216 216 216 
_34 32 36 ^ 39 _82 

(4) Comparison from instructive points of 
view will be assisted by having the pupil do the 
above examples followed by such a series as : — 

216 231 412 248 235 243 2G9 

^ 21 21 24 23 ^ 44 

This, by making the computation very easy and 
by using 33, 22, 44 as multipliers, accentuates the 
place-values of the second partial product. The 



1 82 



METHODS IN EDUCATION 



same end is forwarded by such an exercise as 
writing in the missing numbers in the case of 
statements Hke : — 'When I write the 8 of 648 
under the 3 of 34 (or 32, or 36, etc.) the 648 

counts as in adding,' and by such a series of 

exercises as:— 



A. loX 2= 


B. 30X 23= 


C. 30X215: 


loX 6= 


20 X 24= 


30X312 


10X23= 


40X 12= 


30X217: 


10X24= 


20X123= 


30X216: 


30X 2= 


30X132= 


20X216 


20X 2= 


30X211= 


40X216 


D. 2X23= 


E. 20X27= 


F. 40X22: 


20X23= 


40X27= 


10X26: 


200X23= 


60X14= 


300X26: 


3X23= 


40X14= 


30X26: 


30X23= 


20X48= 


40X17^ 


300X23= 


100X48= 


400X17: 


30X27= 


20X36= 


70X12: 


300X27= 


200X36= 


700X12: 



(5) Contrast is employed by the use of 22, 33, 
44, 32, 23, etc., in the muUipHer, as was noted. 

(6) The rule may in this case be explicitly 
framed in words by the pupil, or left as a prin- 
ciple of action. 

(7) The process may be verified by actually 
adding, in two or three examples like 13X435 or 
14X62, where the addition is not too long, and in 



INDUCTIVE METHODS 183 

other ways besides the customary verification by 
the authority of the teacher or the answer-Hst. 

(8) The principle would be applied in further 
problems. 

Inductive methods are contrasted, 

Contrast with 1 1 • 1 1 • 

teaching only on the One hand with mere learning 
the results of Qf ^j^g results of reasoning, and on the 

reasoning. . , 

other with deductive' methods, where- 
by the teacher leads (or tries to lead) the pupil 
to think out the answer to the problem at hand 
from some general principles. In the illustration 
chosen, mere learning the results of reasoning 
might be represented by the following: 

Multiply 3457 by 23. 
Model: 3457 Multiply 3457 first by 3, and 
< 23 write the product. Next, mul- 

1037 1 tiply by 2. Two 7's are 14. 
6914 Write the 4 under the 2. After 
795 1 1 completing the multiplication 

by 2, draw a line and add the 

products. 

Contrast with ^ deductive method of teaching 
deductive would be one which led the pupils to 
™^ ° ^* reason out from the facts of decimal 

notation, or at least to understand, more or less 
of the following or its equivalent : — 

(i) Since any digit in the tens place repre- 
sents that number of tens, and since a\b\c=^ 
by^ay^c, any number, c, multiplied by any number 



184 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

of tens, a, will give the same result as if c were 
multiplied by a and the resulting product multi- 
plied by 10. But to rnultiply by 10 is to make all 
the units tens ; all the tens, hundreds ; all the hun- 
dreds, thousands ; and so on. Hence, to multiply 
by any multiple of ten, multiply by the digit rep- 
resenting that multiple, as if it were in units 
place, but write the units of the product in the 
tens place, the tens of the product in the hundreds 
place, and so on. 

(2) Now, since {a^h)Xc—{aXc) + {bXc), 
the product of any number, c, and any two-place 
number will be the sum of the products of the 
number c when multiplied by the largest multiple 
of ten and by the smallest multiple of one which, 
if added together, make that two-place number. 

(3) Hence, to multiply by any two-place num- 
ber, multiply as in short multiplication, by the 
smallest multiple of one ; multiply as shown in 
(i) by the largest multiple of ten, the sum of 
these multiples being the two-place number in 
question ; add the products.* 

Two-place multiplication was chosen deliber- 
ately to illustrate inductive method and deductive 
method because it can reasonably be taught in 
either way or as a mere learned fact. Indeed, the 

* The deductive methods of teaching two-place mul- 
tiplication in vogue in text-books of elementary arithmetic 
do not teach the entire process deductively. More or less 
of it they give outright as a result of reasoning to be 
learned as a habit. 



INDUCTIVE METHODS 185 

mere mechanical learning of the procedure may 
seem to many the most economical method. It 
should, however, be noted that such mechanical 
learning is really inductive, the generalization 
coming after much drill and being in the form, 
'This procedure is right because it always gives 
the right answer,' the teacher's word or the an- 
swer-key being the means of verification. It 
should also be noted that the inductive method of 
teaching the subject need take no more time, since 
the time is spent in doing examples equally 
profitable for drill. 

Illustrations could have been found in which 
inductive methods, deductive methods and mere 
learning results would, one or the other, be ob- 
viously superior. Thus the meanings of one 
third, one fourth and one fifth are best taught to 
second-grade children inductively from the ex- 
amination of apples, cakes, lengths, volumes, and 
groups of objects, so divided. The meaning of 
one forty-eighth or one twenty-third, if taught at 
all to fifth-grade children, should be taught as a 
deduction from truths already known about frac- 
tions. The fact that certain large bodies of land 
are called continents should be learned as a mere 
result. 

§ 40. Expressive Methods 

The original and fundamental form of learn- 
ing, in the child and in the animal kingdom as a 
whole, is by connecting actual movements of the 



l86 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

body with the situations which life offers. And 
all through life, for most men in most situations 
when previous habits do not decree otherwise, the 
'natural,' favored sort of response is to make one 
or another actual movement. Indeed, much that 
we think of superficially as pure thought is rooted 
in and accompanied by actual motor responses. 
The partial excitement of the vocal cords and 
mouth-parts in inner speech often accompanies 
so-called silent reading. The eye muscles become 
tired in mentally multiplying with examples like 
247X863. Attention is a state of body as well as 
of mind. 

Now it is likely that a restriction of muscular 
action in schools to the movements of the head 
and eyes in attending, of the fingers and eyes in 
writing and of the vocal cords and mouth-parts 
in speech, is far too narrow. Gesture, facial ex- 
pression, mimicry and other dramatic movements, 
dancing, drawing, painting, making maps, models, 
and other constructions, probably all can be used 
to good advantage in getting, applying and test- 
ing knowledge and appreciation, as well as in ac- 
quiring desirable forms of motor skill itself. The 
expressive methods of teaching stand for the ac- 
ceptance and exploitation of these probabilities. 
They rightly claim that for a pupil to use only 
words in his responses is as risky as for a teacher 
to use only words in his stimuli. In general, the 
arguments that hold for the use of concrete reali- 
ties in impression upon the pupil, hold for the use 



EXPRESSIVE METHODS 1 87 

of manual construction, dramatic action, drawing, 
modeling and the like in'expression by him. The 
caution against over-technicality and elaborate- 
ness in object-lessons and laboratory methods 
holds for the expressive methods as well. It is 
not the mere dancing or drawing or acting, much 
less the intricacy of its technique, that constitutes 
the merit of the expressive methods. Means and 
ends must not be confused. 



CHAPTER X 

Methods in Education (concluded) 

Lecturing, object-lessons, questioning, the so- 
called 'developing' methods, and the method of 
discovery, may be grouped together because they 
all concern the extent to which the teacher should 
try to tell or show the pupils facts which they 
could find out by themselves. 

§ 41. Telling and Showing: Lectures and 
Demonstrations 

The lecture and demonstration methods repre- 
sent an approach to a limiting extreme in which 
the teacher lets the pupil find out nothing which 
he could possibly be told or shown. They frankly 
present the student with conclusions, trusting 
that he will use them to earn more. They ask of 
him only that he attend to, and do his best to 
understand, questions which he did not himself 
frame and answers which he did not himself 
work out. They try to give him an educational 
fortune as one bequeaths property by will. The 
same theory of giving facts to work with later, 
rather than inciting the student to use what he 

188 



TELLING AND SHOWING 1 89 

has already, is at the bottom of much that is 
printed in text-books, or done in object-lessons, 
excursions and the like. A map, a dictionary, a 
table of logarithms, or a chapter in an ordinary 
history, are clear cases of the lecture-demonstra- 
tion or 'telling-showing' method. 

The 'telling-showing' method is by far the com- 
monest in use in schools and books, but is criti- 
cized by educational experts. The two chief dis- 
advantages which they find in it are : — that the 
student may hear or see but not understand ; that 
he does not learn how to think— how to discover 
a problem, a means of attacking it and its solution 
— how to get facts, and further facts out of them. 

These defects are not, however, necessary 
features of the method. A student is less likely 
to understand what is simply given to him than 
what he works out for himself, but he may. A 
student may also be provoked to think by in- 
formation given as well as by a problem set, — 
by answers as well as questions. In some cases, 
indeed, the very best way to induce the mind to 
think for itself is to give it facts to think with 
and conclusions to justify, compare or increase. 

The chief excellence of the 'telling-showing' 
method is economy. In some cases this advan- 
tage alone justifies its use. For example, it would 
be absurd to spend the time necessary for a pupil 
to reason out what ja, nein, and Pferd mean, how 
many legs a spider has, when George Washington 
died, or the value of tt. 



IQO METHODS IN EDUCATION 



§ 42. Questioning 

Telling is, however, certainly only a small part 
of teaching. A man who could state facts with 
perfect lucidity, in the clearest and most logical 
sequence, fitting the information at every stage 
to the previous experience of the student, would 
still be far from a perfect teacher. Knowledge 
of human nature and practical experience in 
schools agree in emphasizing the value of ques- 
tioning. 

Its advantages. The questioning method has three 
Verification, main advantages. It keeps the teach- 
er and the student informed of what the latter 
does and does not know — can and can not do. 
The teacher by it verifies the results of his pre- 
vious work, as a scientific man verifies his 
theories by actual observation and experiment. 
He learns what changes have been made in the 
students, and what remain to be made, and so is 
guided in what he does or says next. The stu- 
dent by it is kept informed of where he has suc- 
ceeded and where he has failed, and is guided in 
his own further study. 

Besides this advantage of constant 

Definite aims. . . 

examination of those who are bemg 
taught and the consequent verification of the re- 
sults of teaching, the questioning method helps to 
put the students in the attitude of facing issues, 
solving problems, and working over situations to 



QUESTIONING I9I 

get effective responses to them. Such active at- 
tacks upon problems are important means of in- 
tellectual progress. In Dr. Earhart's words, ''. . . 
The recognition of a problem is the first factor in 
proper study. . . . This problem must be felt as 
such by those who are to study, or else the motive 
and guide for thought are lacking. ... In order 
that the thinking may be accurate, the problem 
must be clearly defined in the mind of the person 
who is to do the thinking."* 

The active use ^^ ^he third place, the questioning 
of previous method, properly used, gives students 
knowledge. ^ better chance to do as much as they 
can themselves, to use the knowledge and insight 
which they already have in acquiring more. It is 
desirable for many reasons for students to recall 
a fact from within instead of receiving it from 
without, to create the right inference from cer- 
tain premises instead of accepting it as right 
when it is given by another, and to select the 
essential element out of a complex situation by 
one's own trials instead of merely learning that 
it is the essential one. The chief reasons are: — 
that interest is increased, so that the work is done 
with less strain and waste; that the resulting 
changes in the student are more permanent ; that 
the changes made are, in and of themselves, better. 
The last is the most important. Since we tell a 
pupil that six threes are eighteen only in order 
that when asked how many six threes are he will 

* Teaching Children to Study, p. 22. 



192 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

know, it is safer to have him face that question 
and get the answer, say, by adding a colurnn of 
six threes. He thus gets not only the answer, 
eighteen, but also the habit of using his knowl- 
edge of how to add. 

§ 43. Developing Methods 

What is meant by a 'developing' method can 
be seen best by illustrations. Suppose the prob- 
Heipingpupus ^^^ set is. What are the chief prod- 
toheip ucts of Minnesota? Suppose the 

themselves. tg^cher, instead of either telling the 
facts outright or blankly asking the question, puts 
such a series of questions and suggestions as 
these :— Think where Minnesota is. Draw it on 
this outline map of North America (on the black- 
board). Name some things that won't grow there 
easily or at all. Think of the maps you made of 
the corn-belt and wheat-belt in America. Which 
belt took in Minnesota? Think of the maps I 
showed you of the chief deposits of gold, silver, 
copper and iron ore in the United States. Who 
is sure that he knows the chief States for pro- 
ducing gold? Silver? Copper? Iron? Each 
one of you may write down one thing, besides 
wheat and iron ore, that you think Minnesota 
produces in large quantities, and the reason why 
you think so. John may look in the index of this 
book about Minnesota to see if the book tells 
what the chief products are. Helen may look in 



DEVELOPMENT I93 

the Statistical Abstract of the United States to see 
if we were right about rice and cotton and 
tobacco and wheat and iron ore. 

The developing method means substantially 
getting the pupil to do more for himself by doing 
something for him, — more for himself than he 
would do if either everything or nothing were 
done for him. It might be better named the 
method of stimulating helps, that is, of helping 
pupils to help themselves. 

The help may be given by questions, sugges- 
tions, objective demonstrations, gestures, facial 
expression or in many other ways. It may take 
the forms : — of starting him on a useful series 
of associations, of arranging the order of a series 
of problems for him, of narrowing the field in 
which he is to search for an answer, of suggest- 
ing a field in which to look for it, of supplying a 
needed fact outright, or of many other directing 
acts. It is not so much an opposite of telling or 
questioning as a modification of both, whereby 
the pupil is led to do more for himself. It is, as 
was just said, well described as the method of 
stimulating helps. 

§ 44. The Method of Discovery 

The method of discovery carries the reaction 
against merely giving pupils the results of other 
men's experience and thought to the extreme of 
declaring that each pupil should learn facts in 



194 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

the way that they were learned by their original 

discoverers. If this doctrine is taken literally, 

however, it becomes absurd. One 

Extravagant 

hopes of would, for example, have to create a 

originautyin primitive environment in which fire 

children. ^ • i r 

was unknown save as an accident of 
nature, in order to have the child discover the 
art of making fire, by rubbing sticks and the like, 
as it was originally discovered. If, by any lucky 
chance, he did discover what millions of men 
lived long lives without discovering, he still 
would have to be excluded from all experience 
with flint and steel, matches, electric sparks and 
the like, until by a series of lucky chances he re- 
peated the triumphs of the world's great scien- 
tists and inventors! It would be enormously 
costly thus to deprive children of the advantages 
of civilization, and would be the height of folly, 
even if it could be done at no cost. 

The starting-point for children's supposed *dis- 
coveries' is the very advantageous one of an elab- 
orate general experience of many of the facts to 
be discovered. They also start with problems so 
framed as to be half answered. One of the hard- 
est things in the original discovery was getting 
the question itself. Given the questions— How to 
make fire at will?, or How many are six and six?, 
or How can zve go on the water in what direction 
we wiilfy or Is static electricity the same as light- 
ning?— znd a very great advance is already made 
toward the answers. One important symptom of 



THE METHOD OF DISCOVERY I95 

intellectual greatness is the power to frame new, 
significant, answerable questions. Now in prac- 
tice the advocates of leaving children to redis- 
cover facts always give them not only the general 
preparation of crude acquaintance with the facts 
of civilized life, bilt also the questions as starting- 
points. Children are never left to discover the 
sciences and arts as they were originally dis- 
covered. They are always given advantageous 
knowledge and help in seeing what the problem is. 
But, even with these modifications, 
at most, mean the requirement that pupils actually 

only active rediscover facts is still absurd. If 
search. 

they had such capacities, it would be 

far better to set them to discovering new facts, 

which would be more educative for them and 

infinitely more useful to the world. If they are 

able to discover the alphabet independently, they 

should be able to discover improvements on it ; if 

they can rediscover the cause of tuberculosis, let 

them discover the cause of cancer! Of course, 

save for the few individuals of great gifts, they 

do not, no matter what we pretend, rediscover 

important facts. At the most, they discover facts 

as one might be said to discover a piece of gold 

who was taken to a plot in which it had been 

buried, not too deep, and told, "Dig around here. 

You will probably find something of value." 

The method of discovery at its best is, in fact, 

a very bad title for methods in which the pupil is 

left to his own efforts so far as he can be without 



196 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

too serious detriment to the quantity and quality 
of the information and skill that he gets. Such 
methods are good in proportion as they avoid 
such detriment and encourage the intellectual 
virtues of persistence, ingenuity and scientific 
method. But they are not methods of teaching 
through actual discovery. 

At its worst, the method of discovery is a name 
for pretense that the child is cultivating powers 
of originality and self-reliant investigation, while 
all the time the facts are being smuggled into his 
possession as truly as in straightforward 'telling.' 

§ 45. Teaching Pupils How to Study 

Teaching pupils how to study— or better, how 
to educate themselves — is obviously as important 
^^^^ as teaching them to know certain 

'studying' facts and to do certain things. The 
oug omean. Y^^iuingness and ability to study effi- 
ciently — to educate oneself well — involves (i) 
having purposes or aims, (2) putting questions 
to oneself, (3) bringing to bear upon any problem 
whatever relevant facts one knows, (4) organizing 
these facts according to their bearings upon the 
problem, (5) searching for more in the writings 
of men competent to inform one about the prob- 
lem in question, (6) judging the merits of the 
suggestions thus received, (7) observing and ex- 
perimenting in first-hand contact with facts, (8) 
economizing time and energy in the triple task of 



HOW TO STUDY 1 97 

forming habits, acquiring skill and memorizing 
what is permanently needed, (9) using the 
knowledge or skill or interest when it is gained, 
and cherishing ideals of open-mindedness, fair- 
ness, accuracy, thoroughness and caution. 
Good teaching ^^ is, in general, true that methods 
forms good of teaching which help pupils to learn 
a 1 so s u y. ^^j| ^j^^ j^^jp ^^^^ ^q study well. The 

methods that are best to develop sound knowl- 
edge of arithmetic in a pupil will, as a rule, be 
the best to teach him how to study arithmetic. 
If by sound knowledge is meant knowledge in the 
long run, this identity of excellence in teaching a 
subject and in teaching how to study it is prob- 
ably universal. But it is possible, by focussing 
attention upon immediate facility, to choose 
methods of teaching that are excellent for that, 
but defective for the m^ore important service of 
arousing in a pupil the desire and power to edu- 
cate himself. Even gifted teachers often, in com- 
mendable zeal for interest and economy of time, 
prepare pupils in advance for every chapter to be 
read by outlining it, eliminating all difficulties, 
and accepting the ability to give the substance of 
the chapter as all that the pupils are to do. The 
pupils may be left unable to study a book intelli- 
gently by themselves. If they had been given 
problems to work out with its aid that were just 
within their capacity, they might have absorbed 
its substance less easily, but would have gained a 
more valuable knowledge of its relations and 



198 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

uses, and also have had some training in the in- 
dependent use of books. 

V § 46. Methods in Moral Education 

A teacher, confronted with the task of getting 
a pupil to be or do this or that, often acts as 
habit suggests, asking or telling the pupil to be 
Example and this or do that. 'Be attentive,' 'Please 
precept. spg^k clearly,' Think hard,' 'Hold 

the pen lightly,' 'Don't talk through your 
nose,' and the like, are the means which habit is 
likely to make one use. Experience, however, 
teaches us all that personal example is often supe- 
rior to advice and orders, because the model given 
tells the pupil more clearly what to do or makes 
him more disposed to do it. In morals, manners 
and the more delicate features of skill, example 
has thus special advantages over precept. For 
the teacher to possess the quality to be taught and 
to secure from pupils the attitude of respect 
which is the soil in which imitation flourishes, is 
thus an important part of method in teaching. 

A simple order has no power, in 
Imperative, , . . , . ; ^ - 

persuasive, and of itself, to produce action. Only 

and suggestive jj^ gQ f ^j. ^g habits of doinsf what one 

methods . . . 

is told to do have been built up, does 
the mere imperativeness of the order effect any- 
thing. Otherwise it simply proposes to the per- 
son the project in question, his response to it 
being a result of favoring and opposing impulses. 



METHODS IN MORAL EDUCATION I99 

To produce and prevent these is the function of 
argument and suggestion. Both argumentative 
and suggestive methods of teaching and manage- 
ment try to produce favoring impulses, though 
the latter do so somewhat more subtly. 
Their proper The essential difference between 

uses. them is that between overcoming con- 

trary impulses or ideas and preventing them from 
appearing at all. Each method of securing be- 
lief or action of a desired sort has its special ad- 
vantages. Successful persuading conquers a diffi- 
culty instead of avoiding it, and so may put the 
person educated in a better permanent condition. 
Children, or adults, who have been habitually 
hoodwinked into virtue may lack stability against 
their own original impulses and the evil sugges- 
tions of others. On the other hand, the argu- 
ments which are used in persuasion, though valid, 
may be ineffective, or even incomprehensible to 
the person in question, so that the choice is be- 
tween suggestion and brute compulsion. It is, 
for example, commonly futile to argue with a 
five-year-old in favor of temperance in eating. 
The skill in maintaining order among little chil- 
dren which a teacher acquires by experience is 
made up to a large extent of devices, often un- 
conscious, of voice, bearing, words and so on, 
that have proved successful as suggestions. 

When, by defect in original nature or pre- 
viously formed habits, an undesirable response is 
made to a situation, — for example, the response 



200 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

of bullying to the situation a zveaker playmate, — 

there is the choice among these three methods. 

(i) The situation may be evaded in 

Evasive, i i i r 

suppressive, the hope that by lack of exercise the 

and substitutive bad instinct or habit will die; thus the 
methods, 

bully may be kept away from younger 
children. (2) The wrong response may be sup- 
pressed by making it result in discomfort; if 
every act of bullying brings prompt misery to the 
bully, the tendency will weaken. (3) Some other 
response to the situation may be substituted for 
the wrong one, or the wrong response may be 
connected with a situation where it is appropriate, 
or both of these directive changes may be made 
together. Thus the bully may be taught to use 
up his surplus energy in carrying the weaker 
playmate on his back or in boxing with him, 
using only one hand. Or he may be taught to 
attack other bullies, or to use the hunting, attack- 
ing, triumphing responses in some appropriate 
systematized game like football. Or he may be 
taught to do both. 

The advantages The substitutive or directive meth- 
of substitution. Q^jg have the very great advantage of 
providing some positive good tendency in place 
of the bad one, instead of simply avoiding or 
suppressing it ; and of utilizing the energy of the 
individual instead of leaving it dammed up ready 
for mischief. They can also be used to prevent 
bad tendencies beforehand as well as to cure them 
after they appear. Alone, or in various combina- 



METHODS IN MORAL EDUCATION 20I 

tions with evasion and suppression, they are the 
mainstay of moral training. The history of edu- 
cation is marked by the total or partial abandon- 
ment of evasion and suppression in favor of re- 
direction in one after another field of human con- 
duct. And one may prophesy that the principle 
will find useful applications in new directions— 
for instance, that a useful cure for injustice in 
business will be found in higher schools of busi- 
ness administration, whereby the crude tenden- 
cies to respond to the situation, a business oppor- 
tunity, with acts productive of success at any 
cost, will be replaced by tendencies to do the work 
in question as efficiently as possible in the spirit 
of science. Similarly, a useful preventive of war 
between nations will be to habituate nations to 
positive cooperation in enterprises for the com- 
mon good, such as charting the seas, exterminat- 
ing contagious diseases, establishing international 
courts and international police, arranging for the 
migration of students and teachers, and the like. 
Reward and The Selection of good responses by 

punishment, associating their connection with ap- 
propriate situations with satisfaction is in general 
preferable to the elimination of bad responses by 
pain or deprivation.* It is true that if an animal 

* Where the desired response is simply not to do a 
certain thing punishment is very useful. When there are 
only two alternatives, to do A or to do B, A being wrong, 
punishment is fairly effective. When there are many pos- 
sibilities, A B C D . . . N, which are of varying merit, 
punishment is likely to be very wasteful. 



202 METHODS IN EDUCATION 

learns to respond correctly from the infliction of 
pain, it may learn rapidly. But there is a strong 
tendency for an animal, if punished for a given 
response, not to avoid it in favor of the right one, 
but to avoid making any. The more intense the 
punishment, the more likely this is to be the case. 
These general principles are, however, com- 
plicated in the practical exigencies of education 
by differences in the situations and responses con- 
cerned, in the kind and degree of punishment or 
reward, in the influence of the method upon op- 
portunities for deceitful avoidance, and in the de- 
gree of maturity and individual peculiarities of 
the individual. Hence to find the best incentives 
and deterrents, and to choose between incentive, 
deterrent or mixture of the two, becomes in any 
particular case an intricate problem for psy- 
chology and experimental education. To hit a 
baby's hand every time that it starts to reach for 
some improper object on a table can be shown to 
be useful ; but to hit a child's hand because a blot 
is found upon his sheet of writing can be shown 
to be wasteful as well as cruel. The detailed facts 
which should be at the basis of particular choices 
of incentives and deterrents cannot be reported 
here. 

V 



chapter xi 
The Results of Education 

§ 47. The Results of Education as a Whole 

The results from education in the broad sense 
of all human endeavor to change men are easy to 
Education is See, though hard to measure. Thus 
effective. ^g g^g ^j^g introduction of Western 

knowledge and skill transforming Japan, and will 
see it transforming China. Thus, by being 
changed from creatures who regarded diseases as 
accidents or punishments from angry gods, to 
creatures who know them to be the natural and 
predictable consequences of the invasion of the 
body by the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus, the failure of 
the body to make enough red blood corpuscles, 
the presence of parasites carried by a stegomyia 
or anopheles mosquito, or the inefficiency of the 
thyroid gland, men add years to their lives, 
change fundamental habits of food and shelter, 
and begin to elevate religion above a bargaining 
with God. 

Its results are ^he changes produced against great 
often resistance in one generation often be- 

permanent. r i- 1 ^ • -i 

come easy of accomplishment in the 
next. When once a belief or custom is accepted 
by men, its inculcation into their children is 

203 



204 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

favored instead of hindered by intellectual in- 
ertia. It would be almost as hard for a child in 
America to-day to continue thinking that the 
world is flat as it would have been for a child in 
Europe in 1300 to have learned that the world is 
a sphere. A body of knowledge, customs and at- 
titudes, once acquired, may thus continue century 
after century, rolling up like a snowball. We 
speak, count, draw, live in houses and cook food 
so easily under the slight pressure of unconscious 
education that we are likely to forget that none 
of these activities is present in original nature — 
that all are the gifts of education. 
They become The results of education persist 

twngsand ^^^^ ^y ^^^^S embodied in changes in 
institutions. the world of things. Education makes 
some change in the habits and ideas of men ; this 
change in turn causes an engine to be built, a book 
written, an orchard planted, a picture painted. 
The engine, book, orchard or painting, in turn, is 
an educative force acting upon meru The changes 
which man makes in himself may be effective not 
only in the ideas and customs which his children 
adopt easily, but also in the altered environment 
he leaves behind him. The changes man makes 
in himself would often avail little without those 
which he makes in the world about him. The two 
sorts are subtly and closely dependent one upon 
the other. Both together represent his legacy to 
mankind, a legacy without which our children 
would lead lives, supposing that by a miracle they 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL 205 

could keep alive at all, of degradation and wretch- 
edness far below that of the most uncivilized 
African tribe. 

But not in the It might be expected that the re- 
germ-piasm. gults in intellect, character and skill 
produced by education in one generation would 
directly affect the next generation by hereditary 
transmission. It is plausible to suppose that the 
successful study of mathematics for ten gen- 
erations would produce, in the germs which make 
the eleventh generation, at least some slight ten- 
dency which would develop, as the germs grew 
into human beings, into an ability to learn mathe- 
matics more easily than did the first generation. 
But this is false. The evidence is all against the 
theory that the special knowledge, interests, 
habits, skill, or morals which a human being 
acquires during life will alter his germs so that 
the children developing therefrom will be any the 
more likely to possess or acquire that special 
knowledge, interest, habit, or skill. Even though 
for thousands of generations men should all learn 
that (a + &) (a — b)= a^—b^, the thousandth 
generation would probably have no greater readi- 
ness to connect these two ideas. 

The same failure of results in intellect and 
character to change the germs in favor of similar 
results in future generations probably holds of 
the more general elements of human nature, such 
as acquired courage, persistence, accuracy, truth- 
fulness or kindness. There is no evidence that 



206 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

these broader lessons of life do, and no way 
known by which they could, increase the basis of 
courage, persistence, or kindness in the germs. 
With some ^^^ hereditary racial improvement 

possible by education in general health and 

exceptions. • ^i. • i_ t r 

Vigor there is more hope. In so far 

as the entire man is kept free from enfeeblement 
and decay, the germs too may perhaps be kept 
from degeneration. But even here there is little 
surety. For the germs lead an isolated and pro- 
tected life. To half starve a man may perhaps 
not injure his germs ; his mental idleness and de- 
bauchery may perhaps in no wise corrupt them. 
It is by no means certain that even so potent de- 
bilities as excessive acquired alcoholism or mor- 
phinism, which impair almost every part of man's 
make-up, produce measurable harm to the germs. 
What his offspring will be depends upon what 
the germs of a man are, and so upon what he does 
with himself only in so far as his conduct reacts 
upon them. Original nature comes from orig- 
inal nature : inheritance is from the germs to the 
germs. Long before a man is born, the germ- 
cells that will thirty years later produce his chil- 
dren are set off apart. They do not come from 
him as a collection from his total make-up, but 
from the germs that produced him. Whatever 
nature he originally had, they tend to have ; what 
traits he has acquired by education, they need not 
have at all. The history of a child's mental and 
moral inheritance runs back through the original 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL 20/ 

natures of his ancestry as shown in Figure lO, 
with only such doubtful accessions or impair- 
ments from their acquired natures as were de- 
scribed in the last paragraph. 

Education then improves directly 
Selection, not , ... , , • i .1 

training, the conditions under which the race is 

improves the ^o live, but can improve the race itself 
stock itself. 

only indirectly. It improves the race 

indirectly in so far as it teaches man to breed 
men, as he does plants or cattle^ by finding out 
what the best stocks are and selecting them as the 
parents of the race that is to be. Such improve- 
ment of the race has as yet hardly been at- 
tempted. Indeed, many intelligent men and 
women still feel a superstitious dread of tam- 
pering with the question of who shall be born, 
though no other question so deeply affects the 
welfare of man. 



§ 48. The Results of School Education 

Far too little is known of the results in knowl- 
edge, power, skill, interests and ideals, that come 
Are hard to from any given sort or amount of 
measure. school education. What difference it 

makes whether one goes to school a thousand 
days or two thousand ; whether the teachers by 
whom one is taught are paid five hundred dollars 
a year or a thousand ; or whether one studies 
Latin or English— to all such questions no exact 
answers have been found. In a rough way, 



208 



THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 



CO U 

o 

OD 

8B 



N 
\ 

fopl 



u 



\ 

V 

\ 
\ 

fGP 



-00 

o 

00 

6B 



IE 



Fig. 10. 

Fig. 10. A graphic representation of the hereditary 
relation between successive generations. The rectan- 
gles represent adult human beings, those portions of 
each marked G P representing the germ-plasm of that 



SCHOOL EDUCATION 20g 

sagacious parents, teachers and observers of 
school education could estimate the gain made 
by a child, a class, children at large. But such 
estimates would be subject to large errors. 

It is not difficult to compare those 

71l6 effects of 

selection and who have had a given sort or amount 
of training ^f education with those who have not. 

are confused. -r» i • i 

But such comparisons do not measure 
the effect of the education in question alone. The 
other things are rarely equal. Thus, supposing 
it to be true that, at thirty, high-school graduates 
earned two thousand dollars a year, while those 
who stayed in high school only a year or less 
earned one thousand at the same age, the doubling 
of earnings cannot be credited to the education 
given by the last three years of high school until 
we are sure that the two groups were equal in 
native ability and social advantages. As a matter 
of fact, we can be sure that they were not equal. 
For a boy to graduate from high school means 
that, when he entered, he differed from his fel- 
low-students who remained in high school only a 

individual. The union of the male germ-cell and the 
female germ-cell is shown at U ; the growth therefrom 
of the adult form in successive stages by the splitting 
into two, four, eight, etc., cells is shown from U 
downward. The course of the dotted lines illustrates 
the fact that the germ-plasm of one generation comes 
from cells set off early in the growth of the genera- 
tion preceding, and the fact that the line of inheritance 
is consequently from germ-plasm to germs to germ- 
plasm to germs, not from the body as a whole to the 
germs to the body as a whole to the germs. 



2IO THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

year or less. In the case of a thousand pupils in 
the New York City high schools some of the dif- 
ferences between the pupils who graduated on 
time and those who left high school within four 
months after entrance were as follows : — 
Samples of the ^hose who remained to graduate 
selective action on time were three quarters of a year 
younger, and included less than a 
fourth as many children of Irish parents and 
nearly one and three-fourths times as many chil- 
dren of Jewish parents. They reported at en- 
trance that a high-school education was necessary 
for their intended life-work, two and a half times 
as frequently ; and that they intended to complete 
the course, four and a half times as frequently. 
In the work of the first months they were 
esteemed by their teachers far above the other 
group in both ability and industry, and got, in 
the formal records of the school for scholarship, 
grades averaging eighty to the others' sixty. 
Only one in fifteen of them got an average grade 
for the first term's work below sixty, while half 
of those who left school did so. 

We cannot measure the results of a certain 
form of education by comparing those who have 
had it with those who have not, unless the other 
conditions are all equal; and they almost never 
are. Any form of education acts by selecting 
certain individuals as well as by training them. 
Two groups— the graduates of a law school and 
those of an engineering school— were unlike 



SCHOOL EDUCATION 211 

when they entered, and indeed when they were 
boys in short trousers — probably even when they 
were born. It will be found, for example, that 
the former in the elementary school commonly 
preferred history to science, while the latter 
preferred science to history. Children who went 
to school two thousand days will be found to 
have been from the start more interested in 
scholarly work, and more capable at it, than those 
who went only one thousand days. The young 
men who learn the carpenter's trade are selected 
by its attractions, and are different from those 
who are selected by the different attractions of 
clerical work. Different forms of education select 
different sorts of men as well as make different 
changes in them. 

Results from Apart from this confusion of the 
training alone differences made in men by education 
arecompex. ^j^-j-^ ^-j^g differences already present 
in them, there is the further difficulty that the 
changes made are so complex. A list could easily 
be made of a hundred interests, abilities and 
habits which an elementary-school education 
might fairly be expected to influence. Its full 
effect upon some of them might also not appear 
until years after school life was past. Its effect, 
in any case, has to be separated from that of the 
mere inner growth of the mind which comes with 
age. Its effect varies with each pupil subjected 
to it, in accord with his individual peculiarities. 
It is then no wonder that all manner of dis- 



212 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

putes should arise about the value of this or that 
form of school education, and that wise students 
of education should be eager to see the same 
patient, minute, impartial measurements made of 
the results of teaching that scientific men make 
of the results of physical and chemical activities. 
Even greater patience and ingenuity are needed 
in the case of education, because of the subtlety 
and complexity of the changes in human nature 
and of the forces which work to produce them. 



§ 49. Means of Measuring Educational Products 

One important step in exact scientific study of 
educational products is to get units and scales to 
measure them by. Physics could not have pro- 
gressed to its present knowledge about the move- 
ment of bodies in space if its only scales for 
length and weight and time had been short, long, 
very long, and light, heavy, too heavy to lift, too 
heavy for two men to lift. Replacing the old 
scale of freezing, cold, tepid, warm, hot, hot as 
boiling, by the thermometer, helped largely to 
create knowledge of heat. So scales to measure 
such educational forces as the teacher's interest 
in his work, or the ingenuity of his questions, 
and such educational products as knowledge of 
arithmetic, enjoyment of music, ability to write 
English, ability to manage wood-working tools, 
and the like, are much needed. 



MEASURING EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS 213 

As samples of the beginnings made toward the 

study of school achievements, I show parts of 

two such scales, one for children's 

Two sample , • • , , r t- i- 1 

scales for handwriting, the other for iinglish 

educational writing by pupils in their teens. This 
measurements. o j r r 

'graphometer, as we may call it, 

and this 'composition-meter' are crude but very 

useful. 

In the graphometer, or scale for measuring 
the quality of children's handwriting, points or 
qualities o, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 are show^n. 
In so far as the sample shown for zero repre- 
sents handwriting with just not any merit, the 
other samples are a scale for merit in handwrit- 
ing in the same way that $5, $7, $9, etc., are a 
scale for purchasing power, and in almost the 
same way that a series of lines 5, 7, 9, etc., 
inches long would be a scale for length. Any 
handwriting to be measured is compared with 
the scale and given a number accordingly. 

The 'composition-meter,' or scale for merit in 
English writing by pupils in their teens, consists 
similarly of a zero-point and of points at various 
exactly determined distances above this zero. 
Thus, quality yy is as far above quality 67 as 
quality 47 is above quality 37. A composition 
that is regarded by impartial judges as of the 
same merit as the specimen representing point 93 
is twice as good as a composition of quality 47. 
Wherever this scale was used, a mark of 40 or 
60 or 80, if given without bias, would mean a 



214 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

known degree of excellence in paragraph-writing, 
just as 80 pounds means a known degree of 
weight wherever the avoirdupois scale is used. 
By using such scales, the absolute gain which any 
pupil made in any year could be measured in the 
same way as his gain in height, weight, wages or 
pulse-rate, and the results of different means and 
methods of teaching could be demonstrated with 
exactitude instead of being guessed at. 

A Scale for Merit in English Composition 
BY Young People* 



Dear Sir: I write to say that it aint a square 
deal Schools is I say they is I went to a school, 
red and gree green and brown aint it hito bit I 
say he don't know his business not today nor 
yeaterday and you know it and I want Jennie to 
get me out. 

18 

the book I refer to read is Ichabod Crane, it is 
an grate book and I like to rede it. Ichabod 
Crame was a man and a man wrote a book and 
it is called Ichabod Crane i like it because the 
man called it ichabod crane when I read it for 
it is such a great book. 

* This scale is the work of Professor M. B. Hillegas, of 
Teachers College, Columbia University, to whom I am in- 
debted for permission to quote it here. 



Plate III. 

15. 
17. 



Platk I. 



REPRODUCTION (REDUCED ONE HALF) OF 
PORTIONS OF A ' GRAPHOMETER ' 




(L--^r^J^ 







(AA ItxJ^ c^-ntw dw^. <^l/CiK/U: \AHu^ A-fi^y'^-^i 



m 



Plate II. 
11. 



...AA^a^q^ ^^^T^iTZ'CaC ^^^i^^^yt.^ ^ t^£7,<yy^ ^^^T>^jC 






7 



iH'C-C'Z^ 




c^f^^ 



z-^t^^--}^?^ 



13. 



Plate III. 
15. 

C>o^^.«.*-<X^ o^N-l^ -fi^-JUL 0->LLtc«./ a/-r--ucx-2jL iA/4xAJto 

17. 






MEASURING EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS 21 5 

26 

Advantage evils are things of tyranny and 
there are many advantage evils. One thing is that 
when they opress the people they suffer awful I 
think it is a terrible thing when they say that you 
can be hanged down or trodden down without 
mercy and the tyranny does what they want there 
was tyrans in the revolutionary war and so they 
throwed off the yok. 

37 

Sulla as a Tyrant. 

When Sulla came back from his conquest 
Marius had put himself consul so sulla with the 
army he had with him in his conquest siezed the 
government from Marius and put himself in con- 
sul and had a list of his enemys printy and the 
men whoes names were on this list we beheaded. 

47 

De Quincy 

First: De Quincys mother was a beautiful 
women and through her De Quincy inhereted 
much of his genius. 

His running away from school enfluenced him 
much as he roamed through the woods, valleys 
and his mind became very meditative. 

The greatest enfluence of De Quincy 's life was 
the opium habit. If it was not for this habit it 



2l6 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

is doubtful whether we would now be reading 
his writings. 

His companions during his college course and 
even before that time were great enfluences. The 
surroundings of De Quincy were enfluences. 
Not only De Quincy's habit of opium but other 
habits which were peculiar to his life. 

His marriage to the woman which he did not 
especially care for. 

The many well educated and noteworthy 
friends of De Quincy. 

58 

Fluellen. 

The passages given show the following char- 
acteristic of Fluellen : his inclination to brag, 
his professed knowledge of History, his com- 
plaining character, his great patriotism, pride of 
his leader, admired honesty, revengeful, love of 
fun and punishment of those who deserve it. 

67 

Ichabod Crane. 

Ichabod Crane was a schoolmaster in a place 
called Sleepy Hollow. He was tall and slim with 
broad shoulders, long arms that dangled far be- 
low his coat sleeves. His feet looked as if they 
might easily have been used for shovels. His 
nose was long and his entire frame was most 
loosely hung to-gether. 



MEASURING EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS 2\J 

77 

Going Down with Victory. 

As we road down Lombard Street, we saw 
flags waving from nearly every window. I surely 
felt proud that day to be the driver of the gaily 
decorated coach. Again and again we were 
cheered as we drove slowly to the postmasters, 
to await the coming of his majestie's mail. There 
wasn't one of the gaily bedecked coaches that 
could have compared with ours, in my estima- 
tion. So with waving flags and fluttering hearts 
we waited for the coming of the mail and the 
expected tidings of victory. 

When at last it did arrive the postmaster be- 
gan to quickly sort the bundles, we waited anx- 
iously. Immediately upon receiving our bundles, 
I lashed the horses and they responded with a 
jump. Out into the country we drove at reckless 
speed — everywhere spreading like wildfire the 
news, "Victory !" The exileration that we all 
felt was shared with the horses. Up and down 
grade and over bridges, we drove at breakneck 
speed and spreading the news at every hamlet 
with that one cry "Victory!" When at last we 
were back home again, it was with the hope that 
we should have another ride some day with 
"Victory." 

83 
Venus of Melos. 

In looking at this statue we think, not of wis- 
dom, or power, or force, but just of beauty. She 



2l8 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

Stands resting the weight of her body on one foot, 
and advancing the other (left) with knee bent. 
The posture causes the figure to sway slightly to 
one side, describing a fine curved line. The lower 
limbs are draped but the upper part of the body 
is uncovered. (The unfortunate loss of the 
statute's arms prevents a positive knowledge of 
its original attitude.) The eyes are partly closed, 
having something of a dreamy langour. The 
nose is perfectly cut, the mouth and chin are 
moulded in adorable curves. Yet to say that 
every feature is of faultless perfection is but cold 
praise. No analysis can convey the sense of her 
peerless beauty. 

93 

A Foreigner's Tribute to Joan of Arc. 

Joan of Arc, worn out by the suffering that 
was thrust upon her, nethertheless appeared with 
a brave mien before the Bishop of Beauvais. She 
knew, had always known that she must die when 
her mission was fulfilled and death held no terrors 
for her. To all the bishop's questions she an- 
swered firmly and without hesitation. The bishop 
failed to confuse her and at last condemned her 
to death for heresy, bidding her recant if she 
would live. She refused and was lead to prison, 
from there to death. 

While the flames were writhing around her she 
bade the old bishop who stood by her to move 
away or he would be injured. Her last thought 



MEASURING EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS 219 

was of others and De Quincy says, that recant 
was no more in her mind than on her lips. She 
died as she Hved, with a prayer on her Hps and 
listening to the voices that had whispered to her 
so often. 

The heroism of Joan of Arc was wonderful. 
We do not know what form her great patriotism 
took or how far it really led her. She spoke of 
hearing voices and of seeing visions. We only 
know that she resolved to save her country, 
knowing though she did so, it would cost her her 
life. Yet she never hesitated. She was unedu- 
cated save for the lessons taught her by nature. 
Yet she led armies and crowned the dauphin, 
king of France. She was only a girl, yet she 
could silence a great bishop by words that came 
from her heart and from her faith. She was only 
a woman, yet she could die as bravely as any 
martyr who had gone before. 

§ 50. Scientific Studies of School Education 

Science differs from crude opinion by being 
impartial, by presenting facts in such a way that 
any competent observer can verify them, and by 
certain ideals of care, accuracy and close reason- 
ing. Men are just beginning to study the prob- 
lems of educational results in the spirit and by 
the methods of science, without personal bias, 
with detailed records of facts, and with objective 
descriptions and measurements of what they ob- 



220 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

serve. As a sample of such work, I present some 
of the facts found in three investigations of 
school achievement in arithmetic by Rice, Stone 
and Courtis. 

Dr. J. M. Rice studied the ability to solve prob- 
lems in arithmetic in the last five grades of eigh- 
teen schools in seven cities, measuring it by a 
written examination, carefully devised and given 
in all the schools under his own direction.* He 
found, among other facts, that the results varied 
widely among the different classes in any one 
grade. The extremes by his scoring were 9 and 
81 for the seventh grade, and 11 and 92 in the 
eighth grade. He found that the school which 
did well in one grade did well in other grades 
also — that is, that superior or inferior achieve- 
ment was due in large measure to something in 
the school as a whole. Arithmetic differs in this 
respect from spelling, in the case of which dif- 
ferences between schools are not nearly so great. 
Thus, if we measure the work of each class as 
so much above or below (plus or minus from) 
the central tendency of all the classes of that 
grade, we get, for the two best schools and the 
two very inferior schools, records of: — 





4th 


5th 


6th 


7th 


8th 




grade 


grade 


grade 


grade 


grade 


School A 


+ 10 


+ 14 


+ 22 


+ 48 


+ 49 


" B 


+ 15 


+ 19 


+ 23 


+ 31 


+ 38 


" X 


- II 


- 1 


- 22 


-18 


-23 


" Y 


-17 


-29 


-29 


-24 


-32 



* A full report of this study will be found in the Forum, 
Vol. XXXIV (1902), pp. 281-297 and 437-452. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDIES 221 

He found that the superiority of certain 
schools was not due, to any considerable extent, 
to the allotment of more time to arithmetic in 
the school program. For example, the time was 
53 minutes per day in school A, 60 in school B, 
75 in school X, and 45 or more in school Y. His 
data can also be used for studies of the influence 
of the size of the class, the age of the pupils, and 
the wealth of the parents. Dr. Rice finds that 
none of these are of much moment in causing 
the differences between schools in arithmetical 
achievement. 

Dr. C. W. Stone made a more careful and com- 
plete study* of arithmetical achievements in 
twenty-six school systems, but in the case of 
children in the sixth grade only. He found great 
variations in the results from the teaching in 
these different school systems. By his scoring 
the average achievement in the test of the four 
fundamental operations with integers was, for 
each system, as shown in Table I, Column A. 
Similar facts for the test in problems for arith- 
metical reasoning are shown in Column B of the 
table. Similar facts for total achievement are 
shown in Column C. Schools 19 and 5 did, by 
his scoring, twice as well as schools 23 and 25. 

* Arithmetical Abilities, 1908. 



222 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 





TABLE I * 






A. 


B. 


C. 

Score in 




Score in 


Score in 


Reasoning and 


School 


Arithmetical 


Arithmetical 


Computation 


System. 


Reasoning. 


Computation. 


Combined. 


23 


65 


59 


62 


24 


78 


113 


96 


17 


81 


98 


90 


4 


84 


114 


99 


25 


84 


70 


11 


22 


85 


74 


80 


16 


85 


119 


102 


20 


89 


70 


80 


18 


92 


121 


107 


IS 


97 


89 


93 


3 


97 


92 


95 


8 


98 


88 


93 


6 


100 


102 


lOI 


1 


100 


94 


97 


10 


109 


88 


99 


2 


112 


95 


104 


21 


114 


95 


105 


13 


115 


98 


107 


14 


119 


114 


117 


9 


120 


109 


115 


7 


133 


122 


128 


12 


134 


110 


122 


II 


138 


105 


122 


26 


144 


118 


131 


19 


154 


131 


143 


5 


166 


115 


- 141 



This table shows also that the system which 
secures facility in the work of computation tends 
to secure ability in arithmetical reasoning also. 

* The scores as entered in this table are due to a complex 
rating for amount done and accuracy, so chosen as to give, 
in Dr. Stone's judgment, the fairest measurements of the 
relative abilities of the different school systems. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDIES 223 

The correspondence is by no means perfect, but 
there is certainly no tendency for schools that get 
superior accuracy and speed in the four funda- 
mental operations to suffer in respect to the solu- 
tion of problems. 

Of the influence of home training, Dr. Stone 
says: — 

"Environment probably has little effect on arith- 
metical abilities. Of the five highest systems, the 
majority of pupils of one came from a crowded 
tenement district, those of two from exception- 
ally good homes, and those of two from fair. 
Practically the same distribution is found among 
the five systems standing lowest." 

The influence of the amount of time given to 
arithmetic in the school program was found to 
be zero in the case of achievement with problems 
demanding reasoning, and not great in the case 
of computation. For example, systems 9, 14, 7, 
13 and 4 devoted, during the first six years of 
the course, about twice as much of the school 
time to arithmetic as did systems 22, 25, 26, 21 
and 10. But their pupils did hardly any better with 
the problems, and scored only iii to the latter's 
89 in the fundamental operations. When the 
estimated amount of home study is included, 
there is a closer, but still far from perfect, corre- 
spondence between the time given to arithmetic 
and achievement in it. Much remains to be ex- 
plained by differences in the teaching and super- 
visory staffs in the different cities. 



224 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

Mr,. Courtis measured the ability of each grade 
from the third to the thirteenth in September, and 
again in the following June, in the case of the 
fundamental operations, problems demanding 
reasoning, a speed test in reasoning and the speed 
of the additions, subtractions, multiplications and 
divisions up to 9 + 9, 18—9, 9X9 and 81 -^ 9.* 
As samples of the many facts found I select from 
his measurements of the increase in arithmetical 
ability, grade by grade, his evidence that the sixth 
is a grade of low progress in arithmetic, and his 
measurement of the loss in power during the 
summer vacation, and quote his conclusion that 
the several abilities which, together, make up 
knowledge of arithmetic are only loosely related, 
so that each has to be given special attention as a 
more or less independent ability. 

The gain in power to compute and in power to 
use arithmetical knowledge to solve simple prob- 
lems that comes as one does the work of grade 
after grade is shown in Figure 11 and Figure 12, 
which give the average ability in each grade by 
Courtis's scoring for the amount of work done 
correctly in a given time. It will be observed in 
Figure 12 that after the special practice with 
arithmetical problems ceases— that is, in the high- 
school grades— there is little evidence of gain in 
arithmetical reasoning. 

* Measurement of Growth and ElflSciency in Arithmetic, 
in the Elementary School Teacher, December* 1910, and 
March and Juncj 191 1. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDIES 225 

He finds evidence that the sixth grade is a 
period of relatively low achievement because, as 



3 4 5 ^&7 m IS.2 3&4 

H.6. H.S. 

Fig. II. 

Fig. II. The differences between the different school 
grades in the amount of computation done correctly in 
a given time. The numbers 3, 4, 5, etc., along the 
base-line refer to school grades; H. S. is for High 
School ; the heights of the dashes above the base-line 
measure the amount of correct computation in the 
given time. From data given by Courtis. 

he believes, of inner physiological handicaps. 
Whereas the average gains during the school year 
for pupils in the fifth and seventh grades were 
3i> 26, 33, 34, 43, 20 and i8 in the seven tests, 



226 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

they were only 20, 20, 17, 22, 34, o and 10 for 
pupils in the sixth grade— in general, less than 



345 6«.7 6^9 IX'2 3M 

H.S. H.S. 

Fig. 12. 

Fig. 12. The difference between the different school 
grades in the number of simple problems done cor- 
rectly in a given time. The plan of the diagram is as 
in Fig. ii. From data given by Courtis. 

two thirds as great. Yet the year before, when 
they were in the fifth grade, these sixth-grade 
pupils had done well. 

When this set of tests was repeated in Septem- 
ber, the influence of the vacation was clearly 
shown. In the case of the speed or readiness of 
the simple 'combinations,' the loss f rorn June to 



SCIENTIFIC STUDIES 22/ 

the following September was from a fifth to over 
a half of the gain made from the preceding Sep- 
tember to June. Thus, on the average, the fifth 
grade gained 29 and lost 19; the sixth gained 20 
and lost 4; the seventh gained 26 and lost 7; the 
eighth gained 28 and lost 8. From experiments 
made by Dr. W. F. White,* however, it seems 
likely that this effect of the vacation would be 
quickly overcome by renewed 'drills.' 

Of the specialization of arithmetical abilities, 
Mr. Courtis says: *'It seems practically cer- 
tain that in the present state of our arithmetic 
teaching each operation and each part or division 
of a topic is learned by the child as a separate 
unrelated activity. There is no coordination, no 
welding of separate parts into one science of 
number, no appreciation of the meaning and pur- 
pose of arithmetic as a whole. Accordingly the 
incidental emphasis of the teacher on one topic or 
another, due to the varying mentalities of the 
different classes of the same grade, leaves a last- 
ing bias toward skill in one operation or another. 
It only remains to point out how, in a later grade 
— a high-school class in algebra, say — a weakness 
in one operation, masked by a fair general ability, 
operates to make the best efforts of the teacher 
of no avail. What is apparently merely a lack of 
attention or care to details of the algebra, is really 
due to a deep-rooted defect of previous training 

* American Education, November, 1906, Vol. X, pp. 185- 
188. 



228 THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION 

in some important particular skill. Both class 
and teacher attack the problem of correction 
blindly and at a place that may need no correction 
at all."* 

Although the first investigations in any new 
field are, of necessity, limited and halting, the 
work justifies Courtis's conclusion that:— "It is 
practicable to measure, not only the general con- 
dition of arithmetic teaching throughout a school, 
the growth in ability and efficiency from grade to 
grade, the defects and needs of any one grade or 
individual, but the effects of changes in method 
or procedure as well. By a series of tests, through 
a number of years, it ought to be possible to build 
up a real science of teaching and to determine by 
strict experimental methods the truth or falsity 
of any educational hypothesis."f 

*Loc. cit., Vol. X, p. 1 8 1, 
^ Loc. cit., Vol. X, p. 199. 



CHAPTER XII 

Education in the United States 

It is the purpose of this chapter to present 
some of the main features of American schools 
Our schools as ^s they now are, some of the changes 
they are. ^-^^t are going on, and some of the 

improvements that the reader may help to bring 
to pass. Every intelligent teacher, and every 
broad-minded man or woman, needs to join to an 
understanding of the general principles of edu- 
cation such as have been discussed, some knowl- 
edge of the actual conditions to which, in our 
country to-day, these principles are to be applied. 

Indeed, it will be hard to find many more im- 
portant questions about our national life than: — 
How many children and young people are going 
to school ? For how long ? Who are they ? How 
many men and women are teaching them ? Who 
are these teachers? What material facilities — 
buildings, grounds and the like — are used for 
education? What is taught and studied? How 
much does all this cost ? Who pays for it ? What 
results from it? What progress has been made 
in the last generation? What can be done now 
to make American schools better? 

229 



230 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 



§ 51. The Students 

Some boys and girls never go to school. In 
large cities some children, often immigrants, are 
How many ^^P^ from school by their parents' 
children go to ignorance or greed; some children, 

school? 1_ J r 1 J. J. 

orphaned or of careless parents, stay 
away from school by choice. In both city and 
country some sickly, crippled, or mentally de- 
fective children, for whom adequate provision is 
not made in hospital or asylum schools, get no 
systematic education. 

Just how many children get no 'schooling' is 
not known. In the better communities, if the 
school officers knew who were evading or being 
deprived of school education, so as to count them, 
they would, so far as they could, put them in 
school. The number is very small — we hope less 
than one in fifty. 

The men and women of America believe in 
giving every child a chance in some school. By 
1910 all except seven States had compulsory laws. 
More and more attention is being given to en- 
forcing these laws. The colored children as well 
as the white are being sent to school ; children 
who live at a distance are being carried to school ; 
the blind and the deaf, the feeble-minded and the 
crippled, are being provided with special schools. 
A generation hence we hope not to have to be 
shamed, as we must be now, by the fact that four 



THE STUDENTS 23 1 

out of a hundred native-born whites, and forty 
out of a hundred negroes, ten years or more old, 
cannot even read a simple sentence. 

The effort to give every child at least five or 
six years in school was one great reform move- 
ment of the nineteenth century in all civilized 
countries. The hope that such a democracy of 
the first elements of knowledge could be possible 
had showed itself here and there in the seven- 
teenth century. But it was little more than a 
hope. We do not have to go back so far as that 
to find a time when so much 'schooling' as the 
majority of American children now get before 
they are twelve was less frequent than high- 
school graduation now is. Man's history began 
about 240,000 years ago. If, as Professor Robin- 
son has suggested, we think of human history as 
a day, each hour representing 10,000 years, then 
the first dawning of the idea of universal educa- 
tion was about two minutes before the present, 
the movement was fairly under way about half a 
minute ago, and it has now won an almost com- 
plete victory ! Within two generations a com- 
mon-school education changed from a luxury to 
a necessity for the American citizen. 

The length of school education 
For how long? . ° 

vanes from zero, m the case of some 
defectives, delinquents and unfortunates, up 
through all amounts from one to twenty or more 
years. A first-rate education in medicine, for ex- 
ample, now implies approximately eight years in 



232 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

kindergarten and elementary school, seven or 

eight years in high school and college, and four 

years in medical school. At the end of this 

schooling those who wish to be fully equipped for 

work study for two years more in connection 

with hospital practice. 

Out of every hundred children born 
Percentage of . , . • o 1 i- 1 

children m this country, say in 1890, who uvea 

retained to ^q \^q twenty-two, the numbers who 
each age. 

stayed in school* till they were ten, 

eleven, twelve, thirteen and so on, were ap- 
proximately as shown by Figure 13. The shape 
of this figure, which we may call the educational 
pyramid, deserves careful study.f Note first 
that, in spite of compulsory education laws, many 
children do leave school before they are fourteen. 
Note also that many more children stay beyond 
thirteen than is the case in England, France, or 

* Students who drop out of school and then return are 
reckoned as having spent the time after return immediately 
after their leaving. That is, a student who went to school 
from seven to seventeen, stayed out two years, and then 
went three years, would be reckoned as staying till twenty. 
Students in correspondence schools, evening schools, or 
extension classes of universities are not counted. To 'stay' 
in school is taken to mean doing full work in some regular 
institution. There are many other complexities, but none 
of them need be considered for our present purpose, which 
is simply to get an idea of the extent to which this country 
keeps children and young people attending school as their 
main business. 

t The exact determination of the form of the educational 
pyramid is impossible because of the incompleteness of 
school records, and the figures given above might be 
changed somewhat if full information were available. But 
they are much truer to the facts than one's chance opinion. 



THE STUDENTS 
1-22 



233 




Fig. 13. The educational pyramid; showing by its 
width at various heights, the percentage of children 
who remain in school to any given age. A width of 
three inches equals 100 per cent. The numbers 8, 9, 10, 
II, etc., refer to years of age. The diagram represents 
approximately the condition for children born in the 
United States in 1892, or eight years old in 1900. 



234 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 




9 



Fig. 14. The pyramid formed by the dotted line shows, 
by its width at various heights, the percentages which 
the number of 12-year-oIds, the number of 13-year- 
olds, etc., in school were of the number of 8-year-olds 
in school in the case of certain American cities in 
1890. The pyramid formed by the continuous line 
shows the same facts in the same cities in 1908. 



THE STUDENTS 



235 



Germany.* Note, in the third place, that no such 
sharp falHng off occurs at any one age as is often 
supposed. It is not the case that children fall 
into two sharply distinct classes— those who com- 
plete an elementary course only, and those who 
complete also a high-school course. Note, in the 




L 



Fig. 15. The pyramid formed by the dotted line shows, 
by its width at various heights, the percentages which 
the number of 14-year-olds, the number of 15-year- 
olds, etc., in school are of the number of 8-year-olds 
in Philadelphia and St. Louis. Three inches equals 100 
per cent. The pyramid formed by the continuous line 
shows the same facts in the case of Los Angeles, 
Grand Rapids and Worcester. The data are for 1908. 



* The percentage continuing to fourteen, fifteen or six- 
teen in regular day-schools was, in 1900, at least four times 
as large in this country as in England or Prussia. Even if 
all the pupils who are in attendance upon school for an hour 
or two a day while working are counted in, the number 
retained in those countries is still far below the number 
retained here for full-time schooling. On the other hand, 
it must be borne in mind that the school year is in these 
countries longer than it is in the United States. 



236 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

fourth place, that this pyramid has been widening 
out, from the base up, during the past twenty 
years. This is shown in Figure 14, which gives 
the age-distribution of the public-school children 
in certain cities in 1890 and in 1908. 

There are great differences between communi- 
ties in the length of the schooling their children 
receive. Compare, for example, the facts for 
Philadelphia and St. Louis on the one hand with 
those for Los Angeles, Grand Rapids and Wor- 
cester on the other, shown in Figure 15. Yet 
Philadelphia and St. Louis are by no means at the 
bottom of the list in respect to holding children 
in school. 

The chansfes that are being made in 

Improvement in . . . 

the number opportunities and requirements for 

retained m school attendance are fillins: out the 

school. ° . 

pyramid toward the form shown m 

Figure 16. Present laws are being better en- 
forced. The compulsory age is being raised to 
sixteen by the wiser communities ; high-school 
graduation is being required for normal-school 
entrance ; some college work is being required for 
entrance to schools of medicine and law. Grad- 
uate schools of business administration, college 
courses in journalism, railroading and household 
arts, agricultural high schools and trade-schools 
for boys and girls from twelve to sixteen, are 
illustrations of the many enterprises which are 
prolonging school education. 

Thus to release people more and more from 



THE STUDENTS 



237 




Fig. 16. The educational pyramid for 1908 (dotted line) 
and the form toward which present improvements are 
changing it (continuous line). 



238 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

ordinary labor when they are young and protect 
them by proper early training from disease, 
ignorance, waste, misery and baseness, is for the 
general good. Of the lifetime one has to live for 
the world, a large portion— say, from 18 to 24 
years, according to the individual's nature— is 
best spent in activities chosen for their value in 
making his whole life finer and more serviceable, 
irrespective of their immediate money price. The 
community that bravely insists on protecting the 
young against being used up in helping the com- 
munity get a living, soon finds itself getting a 
better living, and other things of much more 
worth. 

Systematic education may also be prolonged by 
compromising with the requirements of self-sup- 
port. Various plans are being devised whereby 
the advantages of regular school training may be 
had by self-supporting students. For example, 
in the University of Cincinnati and in the High 
School of Fitchburg, a pair of boys may, in cer- 
tain departments, share one place in school and 
one apprenticeship in some industrial establish- 
ment, taking turn and turn about in alternate 
weeks. The custom of requiring employers to 
free young people for certain hours per week to 
attend so-called Continuation Schools has re- 
cently become very common in Germany and is 
likely to be adopted here. The evening schools 
are developing from semi-charitable means of 
casual and inferior schooling into institutions 



THE STUDENTS 239 

with well-planned courses, regular grading, and 
skillful instruction in subjects fitted to the nature 
and needs of young people. 
Increasing the ^^ ^he same time and for the same 
length of the reasons that more children are given 
year. gome schooling and that children are 
being kept in school for more years, the school 
year is being made longer. This may be either as 
a requirement or as an opportunity. The change 
from the old short-term 'winter school' and 'sum- 
mer school' of the days of our parents or grand- 
parents, to the thirty-eight or forty weeks' re- 
quirement of our better communities to-day is a 
case of the former. The addition of vacation 
schools for children, or of summer terms in uni- 
versities, is a case of the latter. 

As a result of all these changes, the length of 
schooling in days for the average American child 
is reported by the United States Bureau of Edu- 
cation as having increased by over fifty per cent, 
in the last generation (1879-1909). 
Which chMren Which pupils continue in school till 
are retained? twenty-five and which drop out at 
twenty, fifteen or twelve is a matter of impor- 
tance. Suppose the tenth of children whose 
parents were the wealthiest to continue, — or sup- 
pose the tenth of children who were least able to 
earn money to continue, — or let a tenth who were 
all girls continue, — or let the tenth who were 
most backward in school achievement continue, — 
or let the tenth whose school education would 



240 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

add most to the welfare of the world continue. 
Obviously the value of increased schooling varies 
according to who gets it. It is a greater evil to 
turn some children out from school at fourteen 
than to turn out others. 

It is, of course, impossible to give here the 
necessarily enormously complex answer to the 
question, Who stays in school in America? Nor 
does any one fully know the answer. I shall give 
only a few samples of the facts about the selec- 
tive activity of the schools in the case of one city 
— New York. These facts will be given in the 
form of diagrams showing the median length of 
stay in high school of certain sorts of pupils.* 
Each half-inch in the lines of Figures ly and i8 
equals one school year; each quarter-inch, one 
term or half-year. 

Pupils in the top tenth of the entering class in 
general ability, according to the judgment of their 
teachers, stay in high school over four times as 
long as those in the bottom tenth. Those in the 
top tenth in a similar ranking for industry also 
stay over four times as long as those in the bot- 
tom tenth. The pupils in the top third in ability 
stay nearly three times as long as those in the 
bottom third ; those in the top third in industry, 
nearly two and a half times as long as those in 
the bottom third. Pupils who attained an aver- 

* Median length of stay for any group of pupils is the length 
so chosen that just as many of the group stayed longer than 
it as stayed not so long as it. 



THE STUDENTS 24I 

age mark of 80 to 100 in the first few months' 
work stay in high school five times as long as 
those who attained marks under 50, three and a 
half times as long as those whose marks were 
from 50 to 60, and two and a half times as long 
as those whose marks were from 60 to 70. 

Figure 18 shows that children of wealthy 
parents, as shown by the amount paid for rent, 
do not stay in high school appreciably longer than 
children of even very poor parents. It shows also 
that the kind of pupil who expects to enter one 
of the professions stays from two to three times 
as long as the kind of pupil who expects to go 
into business. 

It is encouraging to find the schools retaining 
the intellectually able rather than the rich, to so 
great an extent as these diagrams show. It may 
be hoped that when the high schools provide 
training for the boy or girl who, though not 
gifted in abstract scholarship, has executive 
ability and skill in the practical arts, the schools 
will hold the future leaders in business and in- 
dustry as they now hold the future leaders in the 
professions. 



242 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

r — I — I — I — i — 1 — \ — \ — I 



►. Top 

a Tenth 

S Bottom 

■< Tenth 



Top 
Tent 
Bott 
Tenth 



c a Bottom 



- TopK 

'^ Middle K 

^ Bottom K 

>. Top H 

I Middled 

•o 

>S Bottom >^ 



go-ioo 
2 80-89 
2 S3 70-79 



OH 



oPti SO-59 
CO 



60-69 
SO-59 
Under so 



> t I I I I I L—J 



Fig. 17. The median length of stay in the high schools 
of New York City in the case of different sorts of 
pupils. Each quarter-inch equals one half-year, as by 
the scale-lines at the top and bottom. The horizontal 
lines give, in order, the median length of stay of :— 

The top 10% in ability as judged by the teachers dur- 
ing the first two months. 

The bottom 10% in ability as judged by the teachers 
during the first two months. 



THE STUDENTS 243 

The top 10% in industry as judged by the teachers dur- 
ing the first two months. 

The bottom 10% in industry as judged by the teachers 
during the first two months. 

The top 33^% in ability as judged by the teachers dur- 
ing the first two months. 

The middle 33%% in ability as judged by the teachers 
during the first two months. 

The bottom 33%% in ability as judged by the teachers 
during the first two months. 

The top 33%% in industry as judged by the teachers 
during the first two months. 

The middle 33H% in industry as judged by the teach- 
ers during the first two months. 

The bottom 33^% in industry as judged by the teach- 
ers during the first two months. 

Those who got in the first term an average grade of 

90-100. 
Those who got in the first term an average grade of 

80-89. 
Those who got in the first term an average grade of 

70-79. 
Those who got in the first term an average grade of 

60-69. 
Those who got in the first term an average grade of 

50-59. 
Those who got in the first term an average grade of 
below 50. 



244 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

r — I — I — I — I — J — I — 



73 


$ 7K to $ 17K 


c 


17M to 27K 


27M to 37K 


■4-> 

c 


37M to 72K 


§ 


72K to 140 



■« Law 

>> 
£(^ Engineering 

c3 Business 

U 



o. Teaching 
W.b Undecided 



O 



Stenography 



Fig. 18. The median length of stay in the high schools 
of New York City in the cases of different sorts of 
pupils. Each quarter-inch equals one half-year. The 
horizontal lines give the median lengths of stay, related 
to different amounts of family expense for rent, and to 
different reports as to expected career, made by the boys 
and girls in question at entrance to the high school. 

The data for Figs. 17 and 18 are taken from Causes 
of the Elimination of Students in Public Secondary 
Schools of New York City, by J. K. Van Denburg. 



THE TEACHERS 245 



§ 52. The Teachers 

There were in the United States in 1910 some- 
what more than half a miUion men and women 

engaged in teaching. In making this 
Their numl)er. .,..., 

estimate, 1 reckon two mdividuals, 

each of whom fills a position supposed to take up 
one half a person's working-time, or three in- 
dividuals each of whom fills a position supposed 
to take one third of a person's time, as one 
teacher. This educational army is about five 
times as large as the country's military force; 
about equal in number to the force of clergymen, 
engineers, physicians and lawyers combined; 
about twice as large as the force engaged in mak- 
ing and selling alcoholic drinks. 
Thereis,asyet, The character of this educational 
no 'typical' force is not so uniform as that of the 
teac er. country's legal, medical or religious 

force. Teaching varies from a temporary oc- 
cupation to a life-work — from an accidental oc- 
cupation to a profession seriously prepared for — 
from a side-issue in the activity of a musician, 
physician or farmer, to the sole business of a 
specialist in education— from 'minding children' 
to the systematic training of the world's most 
important workers. 

Teaching is, however, changing toward the 
status of a profession deliberately chosen, requir- 
ing preparation, and holding its members through- 



246 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

out their working lives. The teacher in a city 
high school, even now, does spend approximately 
the same time in preparation and pass some- 
thing like the same tests for admission to the 
work, as is the case with a physician or lawyer, 
^jjg In the public elementary and sec- 

feminization ondary schools of the country nearly 
eac g. £^^^ fifths of the teachers are women. 
In cities and towns of 8000 and over, more than 
nine tenths of the teachers, and over half of 
the supervising officers, are women. In large 
cities the percentage of women is still higher. 
Since the country districts follow the lead of 
the cities and towns in most matters of gen- 
eral school policy, we may expect that the coun- 
try as a whole will soon be leaving nine tenths 
of the work of teaching to women. 

Men have left the lower grades of teaching al- 
most exclusively to women, and are rapidly leav- 
ing the higher grades as well. The reader's 
grandfather very likely never had a woman as 
teacher, his sixteen-year-old brother may never 
have had a man. Within the last generation 
(1879-1909) the proportion of men teachers in 
public schools has been cut down by over half. 
The number of men actually dropped, while the 
number of women much more than doubled. 

The increased percentage of women in teach- 
ing is one feature of the general fact commonly 
known as the widening of women's sphere. In 
the twenty years from 1880 to 1900, the number 



THE TEACHERS 247 

of women physicians doubled ; the number of 
women in government offices trebled ; the num- 
ber of women journalists and editors quadrupled ; 
the number of women in business increased five- 
fold ; the number in dentistry, sixfold ; the num- 
ber in literary and scientific work, tenfold; the 
number in the ministry, over tenfold ; and the 
number in technical, engineering and electrical 
work, over fifteenfold. So far as data can be 
had, the increase is shown to have continued from 
1900 till now. 

Thequautyof ^^^ welfare of a nation obviously 
American depends on the quality, as well as the 
teac ere. number, of its school-teachers. The 
men and women who have control of children 
and young people for a large fraction of their 
lives — who direct their opinions about the facts 
of the world and form many of their habits of 
thought, feeling and action, who fit future law- 
yers, physicians, clergymen, engineers, account- 
ants, nurses, and the like for their professions, 
and who are assuming a larger and larger share of 
the work of fitting the next generation for all its 
duties and privileges — should obviously be them- 
selves first-rate in intellect, morals and skill. A 
nation which lets incapables teach it, while the 
capable men and women only feed or clothe or 
amuse it, is committing intellectual suicide. Con- 
versely, an enormous future gain is made by tak- 
ing an Eliot for Harvard College rather than for 
a cotton- factory ; or by letting William James dis- 



-248 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

cover truth and teach our sons, instead of curing 

their ailments as a medical practitioner. Of the 

general problem of utilizing every individual's 

original capacities so as to have each do his most 

for the common good, there is no more important 

part than saving, to teach us, those who can do 

it well. 

It is hard to estimate just what sorts of men 

and women are now entrusted with the work of 

teaching. The only available general guides are 

the salaries they receive, the amount of education 

they have had, and the repute in which they are 

held by those who know them. 

The amount of salary received by 
Salaries. . 

teachers is a measure of their quality, 

but a very imperfect and incomplete measure. A 
man of fine character and acute intellect may be 
impelled by love of a scholarly life to teach for 
far less money than he could earn otherwise. A 
man who lacks the ability to handle tools, to boss 
laborers, to drive a bargain, to invest money, or 
to earn a living otherwise than by teaching, may 
be of very great value to the world without hav- 
ing that value recognized and paid for. So 
salaries are an index of a mixed result from three 
factors — the individual's abilities, the commu- 
nity's judgment of their value, and the keenness 
of the two parties in bargaining for the former's 
labor. 

The assistant professors of the hundred uni- 
versities and colleges which stand highest in re- 



THE TEACHERS 



249 



I — l alpepcenj- 



^500 ^1000 *I500 ^2000 ^2500 
Fig. 19. 



p-H a} pen cent 



c 



^500 ^1000 ^1500 ^2000 

Fig. 20. 

Figs. 19 and 20 show the relative frequencies of differ- 
ent amounts of salary for men (Fig. 19) and for women 
(Fig. 20) teaching in public high schools, by the per- 
centage of the area that lies above any given portion 
of the horizontal scale. Thus, in Fig. 19? we see that 
salaries of from $500 to $1100 are very common, that 
salaries below $500 occur in only about five per cent, of 



250 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

pute in this country may be taken to represent the 
teachers engaged in higher education. Such men 
are, with few exceptions, from twenty-eight to 
forty-six years old, and have spent eleven years 
beyond the elementary school in study. Their 
typical financial history is to begin teaching in a 
college at twenty-seven, to earn an average of 
$1325 for the next nine or ten years, to receive 
$1800 by the age of thirty-seven, and eventually 
to get salaries of from $2000 to $3000. 

Figure 19 and Figure 20 show the facts as to 
salary for teachers in public high schools. The 
median salary for the men is $900 ; that is, of the 
men engaged in public high-school work, there 
are as many who receive less than $900 as there 
are receiving more than $900. Of a hundred 
such men five receive less than $500; fifty-one 
receive from $500 up to $1000; twenty-seven, 
from $1000 up to $1500; ten, from $1500 up to 
$2000; and seven, from $2000 up. Over half of 
them receive from $600 to $1000, inclusive. 

For the women the median salary is $650. Of 
a hundred women, twenty-two receive less than 
$500; fifty-nine, from $500 up to $1000; four- 
teen, from $1000 up to $1500; and five, $1500 
and over. 



the cases, salaries of $1500 to $2000 in about ten per cent. 
of the cases, and so on. Such a surface of frequency 
or surface of distribution has the advantage of show- 
ing to the eye at one glance the variability of salaries 
as well as their central or average tendency. 



THE TEACHERS 



251 



Figure 21 and Figure 22 show the facts for five 
thousand teachers studied by Dr. Coffman. These 




^100 ^500 



I per* cent- 



os 00 $2000 



Fig. 21. The relative frequencies of different amounts 
of salary for men teaching in elementary schools (plus 
a small admixture of high-school teachers). The ar- 
rangement of the diagram is as in Figs. 19 and 20. 



were taken to represent as nearly as possible the 
general condition of teachers in public elementary 
and secondary schools, but it is probable that the 
secondary-school teachers were not fully repre- 
sented. In any case, Dr. Coflfman's figures may 
be taken to represent the salaries of elementary- 



252 



EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 



school teachers plus a small number of high- 
school teachers. 

For the men, the median salary is a little under 



=lpercent 



I 1 I 

•5100 ^500 51000 ^1500 



Fig. 22. The same as Fig. 21, 
but for women instead of men. 



$500. Of a hundred men, four received less than 
$250; forty-eight, from $250 to $500; twenty- 
three, from $500 to $750; eleven, from $750 to 
$1000; seven, from $1000 to $1250; and seven, 



THE TEACHERS 253 

$1250 or more. Half of them receive salaries be- 
tween $s6^ and $615 ; four fifths of them receive 
salaries between $250 and $950. 

For the women, the median salary is $450. Of 
a hundred women, five or six receive less than 
$250; fifty-six receive from $250 to $500; thirty- 
two, from $500 to $750; and six or seven, $750 
or more. Nearly half of the women receive 
salaries between $340 and $560; four fifths of 
them receive salaries between $250 and $650. 
Financial There are two lines of improve- 

provisionfor ment to be made in the quality of the 

better teachers. , 1 • r 1 r 1 • 

teachmg force by means 01 salaries. 

The first is to advance salaries and educational 
or personal requirements together for teachers of 
all grades. If a woman, to be fit to nurse our 
children when they are sick, needs two years' 
training beyond high-school graduation, and an 
annual salary of six or eight hundred dollars, so 
does a woman, to be fit to teach them when they 
are well. The second is to dignify the profes- 
sion by very great rewards for very great 
services. If it is desirable that a man be given 
by his fellow-men a hundred thousand dollars a 
year by reason of his possession of expert judg- 
ment concerning the value of real estate, or rail- 
road bonds, or the legality of a business com- 
bination, the equally gifted expert in education 
should receive at least as much— if he wants it. 
He deserves it equally, and is equally likely to 
use it for the common good. As a matter of fact, 



254 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

a middle course is still more desirable : the money 
reward for expertness in trading is as much too 
high as that for expertness in science and edu- 
cation is too low. 



Qslpeifcent 



L - 



L - 



OI2:J4 5G769lOni2 

Fig. 23. The amount of education (in years beyond 
the elementary school) of men teaching in public high 
schools. The diagram shows that about three per cent. 
of these teachers had less than two years of education 
beyond the elementary school ; that about seven per 
cent, had from two to four years of education beyond 
the elementary school ; that about sixteen or seventeen 
per cent, had from four to six years; and so on. 



Length of 
education. 



The amount of education which 
teachers have themselves had is im- 
portant as a partial measure, not only of their 
training for the work, but also of their native ca- 
pacity. For continuance through high school and 
normal school or college means, commonly, superi- 
ority in intellectual interests and capacities, and 



THE TEACHERS 



255 



in the moral qualities of perseverance, stability 
and good will. 

The facts for teachers in public high schools 
are shown in Figure 23 and Figure 24. Of a 
hundred men, ten have had less than four years 
beyond the elementary school ; forty-five have had 



r~|=) pep cent 



I E 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 ir 12 
Fig. 24. The same facts as Fig. 23, but for women. 

from four up to eight years ; thirty have had eight 
years; and fifteen have had nine years or more. 
Nearly three fifths have had six, seven or eight 
years. Of a hundred women, six or seven have 
had less than four years beyond the elementary 
school; forty or forty-one have had from four 



256 



EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 



Up to eight years ; forty-one or forty-two have 
had eight years ; and eleven or twelve have had 
nine years or more. Nearly two thirds have had 
six, seven, or eight years. 

Of the men and women teaching in the ele- 



= lpepeeYjt 




Fig. 25. The amount of education in years beyond the 
elementary school, in the case of men teaching in the 
elementary schools (plus a small admixture of high- 
school teachers). The construction of the diagram is 
as in Fig. 23. 

mentary schools, two thirds have had three, four, 
five or six years of education beyond the ele- 
mentary school. Somewhat over two tenths have 
had less than this, and somewhat over one tenth 
have had more. Figure 25 and Figure 26 show 
the facts in detail. 

Educational '^^^ ^"^^ chief lines of desirable im- 

provisions for mediate improvement of teachers 
better teachers, ^-^j^ respect to previous training are : 

— first, that it be longer, and, second, that it be 
more dignified and exacting. 

As was suggested in the discussion of salaries, 
teachers of all grades need more training. To 



THE TEACHERS 



257 



manage human beings well is a more complex 
and difficult task than to manage chemicals or 
electric currents. It takes longer to acquire 
competence as a human engineer than as a civil 
or mechanical engineer. As men realize the many 



I = I per cent 



o I Z 3^ 5 i> 7 9 10 II 12 
Fig. 26. The same facts as Fig. 25, but for women. 

things that can be done to make a teacher more 
effective, they will realize the necessity of saving 
much waste throughout the teacher's working life 
by spending more time upon his training. Very 
soon six, and then seven, and then eight, years 
beyond the elementary school will be required for 
entrance to the profession of teaching. Some of 
the mechanical work of changing human nature 
may be turned over to individuals of less train- 
ing, as the engineer turns over certain routine con- 
struction to carpenters, masons, or machinists. But 
the real teacher, the architect of human lives, will 
soon be required to possess at least such expert 



258 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

knowledge and skill as only a first-class student 

can gain in a full four years beyond high school. 

This knowledge will not be simply knowledge 

of the mathematics or sciences or languages 

which are to be taught, but will include rigorous 

scientific treatment of the problems of education 

itself. The teacher of the future will think out 

from scientific principles the best way to teach a 

given child to subtract or divide, as the engineer 

thinks out the best way to bridge a given river or 

tunnel a given hill. The study of these principles 

and their applications will demand as great 

talents and as close application as the study of 

the principles upon which medical or engineering 

practice rests. 

There is, as has been shown, a great 
The typical .... . 

teacher in variability in the teaching profession, 

elementary ^yt t^g following quotation from Dr. 

schools. 

Coffman describes roughly the 'aver- 
age' teacher in elementary schools, and shows 
how much still remains to be done in both finan- 
cial and educational provisions : — 

"The typical American male public-school 
teacher is twenty-nine years of age, having begun 
teaching when he was almost twenty years of 
age, after he had received but three or four years 
of training beyond the elementary school. In the 
nine years elapsing between the age he began 
teaching and his present age, he has had seven 
years of experience and his salary at the present 
time is $489 a year. Both of his parents were 
living when he entered teaching and had an 



THE TEACHERS 259 

annual income from their farm of $700, which 
they were compelled to use to support themselves 
and their four or five children. 

"His first experience as a teacher was secured 
in the rural schools, where he remained for two 
years at a salary of $390 per year. He found it 
customary for rural-school teachers to have only 
three years of training beyond the elementary 
school, but in order for him to advance to a town- 
school position he had to get an additional year 
of training. 

"The typical American female teacher is twen- 
ty-four years of age, having entered teaching in 
the early part of her nineteenth year, when she 
had received but four years' training beyond the 
elementary schools. Her salary at her present 
age is $485 a year. When she entered teaching 
both of her parents were living and had an an- 
nual income of approximately $800, which they 
were compelled to use to support themselves and 
their four or five children. 

"Her first experience as a teacher was gotten 
in the rural school, where she remained but two 
years. If she went from there to a town school, 
her promotion was based almost solely upon her 
experience, as no additional training was required 
by the officials of the town. If she desired to teach 
in a city school, she was compelled to secure at least 
one more year of training, but each additional 
year of training, she found, increased her salary."* 

* L. D. Coffman, The Social Composition of the Teaching 
Population, pp. l^-^i, passim. 



260 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

The community's judgment of the intellect and 
character of its teachers is not recorded in figures 
PubUc ^^ presentable in diagrams. But cer- 

estimation tain facts show that, although we 
eac ers. ^^^ ^^ teachers of children hardly 
more than to skilled laborers, and to professors 
in the hundred best colleges of the country only 
about as much as to successful commercial travel- 
ers, we regard the teachers, in each case, as an 
abler class. First, the number of teachers who 
are offered higher salaries in other occupations is 
very large. In the second place, a large number 
of women teachers are chosen in marriage by 
men of ability, and a large number of men teach- 
ers are accepted in marriage by women of ability. 
In the third place, the recent organizations for 
public welfare, such as those for the prevention 
of tuberculosis, the administration of charitable 
funds, the establishment of playgrounds, the 
abolition of child labor and the forwarding of 
international peace, have found among teachers 
many of the men and women best qualified to do 
their work. It is, in fact, generally recognized 
that teachers in all grades are paid less than they 
deserve, are respectable and trustworthy citizens, 
and are more competent to manage men, money 
and opinions for the public service than any other 
group, save possibly the clergy, who are paid as 
little. 

The public esteem of teachers and their work 
for the world has risen within the last century. 



THE TEACHERS 261 

Satires with the ignorance, brutahty and crudity 
of teachers as their topics are less frequent. The 
feehng that teachers work from a spirit of pubHc 
service as well as from economic necessity is 
growing. Parents in cities and towns where the 
teachers have had six years of education beyond 
graduation from the elementary school are, more 
and more, regarding the teacher as an expert to 
give rather than take advice. 

This public esteem should be increased by get- 
ting superior men and women to teach, training 
them more adequately and paying them more, 
and also by showing the nation the importance of 
education as a means to its welfare. The time 
should come when a family that pays its cook 
more than its governess will be a laughing-stock, 
and when a community will be judged primarily 
by what it does for and with its young people. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Education in the United States (concluded) 

§ 53- Organisation and Courses of Study 

The organization of schools in America, being 
controlled by no central authority, is so extremely 
Organization complex and variegated that the ordi- 
of schools. nary educational worker can be ex- 
pected to know it only in a general way. 

One chief factor in determining 
To fit age. . . . , - ., T 

organization is the age of pupils. In 

most cities kindergarten or preparatory, elemen- 
tary, and secondary or high schools are designed 
roughly to fit, by years or half-years, what are 
thought to be the needs of children four to six, 
seven to fourteen, and fifteen to nineteen years 
old. The American college is in large measure a 
school for young people from eighteen to twenty- 
three. Age counts much more as a factor than 
in England or Germany, where the chief division 
is into schools for children of the so-called 'lower 
classes' and schools for the very small minority 
who in those countries may be expected to con- 
tinue their education into the late teens and 
twenties. 

262 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 263 

Ability fuses with age to determine the or- 
ganization. Thus the secondary schools, in spite 
of statements to the contrary, are 

To fit ability. ,, , ^ -r ^ 

actually arranged for more gifted, 
as well as older, pupils. So, indeed, to some 
extent, are the upper grammar grades. The 
pupil who can just barely satisfy the require- 
ments of the first five grades in five years 
often fails to complete grades six to eight 
in three years. In the case of education beyond 
the high school, ability may even outweigh age 
as a basis for organization. Special and general 
defects have led to schools or classes for the 
blind, deaf, crippled, feeble-minded, dull, truants, 
juvenile delinquents and other special groups. 
To fit careers The third factor determining or- 

and studies. ganization is, of course, the subject to 
be studied or the career to be prepared for. The 
kindergarten shows little or no organization ac- 
cording to the subjects of study. The elementary 
school is just beginning to do so, trade-schools 
being split ofif to do their special work, promotion 
by subjects being introduced, and specialization 
of teachers by subjects being encouraged. The 
secondary schools already include divisions such 
as the Classical, English, Commercial and Manual 
Training. They may have courses in special 
preparation for teaching, library work and vari- 
ous trades. Many very specialized schools, as for 
intending railroad workers, telegraphers, printers, 
actresses and young ladies of fashion, are roughly 



264 



EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 



of secondary grade in respect to the age and 
ability of their pupils. 

Education beyond the age of eighteen, except 
in the 'college,' is organizedchiefly by the subjects 
of study, the schools being classified as medical 
schools, law schools, theological schools, schools 
of education, finance, commerce, art, music, and 
the like, the time required for each certificate, 
diploma or degree being determined as six 
months, a year, two years, four years and so on 
by the amount of knowledge or skill to be given, 
and the selection of pupils and teachers being 
made on the basis of fitness to learn and to teach 
the particular subjects in question. 
Common types The common forms of organization 
of schools. niay then be pictured as in the scheme 
outlined below. 

PRE- (Markedly defective 

ELEMENTARY -I children 
Roughly, 4-6 >^ yAll others 



Markedly defective^ 

ELEMENTARY J . speciaP class chU- 
Roughly, 6)^-15-^. ^^^„ 

All othens 



Organization by ca- 
reers and subjects 
of study just be- 
ginning in the 
higher grades. 



SECONDARY 

Roughly, 14>^-19; and of superior 
ability, or inter- 
est, or both 



College preparatory 
General academic 
Commercial 
^Technical 
Teachers' courses 
Trade 
Agricultural 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 



265 



HIGHER 
Roughly, 18-30 ; 



and of superior^ 
ability, or interest, 
or both 



Varieties due 
to lack of 
facilities. 



Academic 

Law 

Ministry 

Medicine 

Teaching 

Engineering 

Agriculture 

Commerce 

Philanthropy 

The fine arts 

The useful arts, in- 
cluding those of 
the household, etc., 
etc. 



These common forms of organi- 
zation may be disturbed by local lack 
of facilities. In rural communities 
the kindergarten and elementary schools may be 
fused, the separate grades of the latter may not 
be distinguishable, and the secondary school may 
be lacking, or have only a three- or two-year 
course. Where public secondary schools are rare, 
so-called colleges will be found doing their work. 
There is almost every gradation from a clean- 
cut, fully graded system, as in large cities, to a 
single teacher doing what he can for pupils from 
five to fifteen. The eight or nine grades cus- 
tomary in the elementary schools of Northern 
cities dwindle to six in many Southern towns. 
There are forty times as many high schools with 
only one teacher as there are with ten teachers. 
Of the colleges legally conferring the bachelor's 
degree, nearly a third have an annual income* 
less than one tenth of that of the so-called typical 

* Exclusive of fees paid for board. 



266 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

small college, such as Amherst, Williams or 
Wesleyan. 

Varieties due These common forms of organiza- 
to special tion are further disturbed by all sorts 

customs. ^£ special aims and customs. Thus 

in some cities there are two classes of secondary 
schools, — those with the usual four years' course, 
requiring the completion of the elementary-school 
course for entrance ; and those with a six years' 
course, accepting pupils who have completed 
three fourths of the elementary course. Many 
high schools have added a postgraduate course 
of a year. Some law, medical and scientific 
schools require college graduation for entrance; 
some require two years beyond high school ; some 
accept high-school graduates. 

Finally, prejudices of race, caste and religion 
do somewhat influence the organization of our 
schools. The public schools for the colored popu- 
lation in Southern States are not the same as for 
the white; where a city has several high schools, 
one may be unconsciously managed to suit the so- 
called 'better' classes ; the Roman Catholic 
Church pays the cost of elementary education in 
order to organize it for the inculcation of certain 
religious habits ; the sectarian foundations for 
secondary and higher education often retain at 
least the right to do so. 

As a result of all these and other forces, Amer- 
ican education shows an almost infinite variety of 
institutions. For example, public elementary 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 267 

schools vary, in number of pupils, from four to 
four thousand. They vary, in the fraction of the 
total course that is in charge of one teacher, from 
one sixteenth to all of it. Even city schools vary 
in the number of pupils in attendance per teacher 
from below twenty-five to over fifty. They vary, 
in the length of the school year, from much under 
one hundred up to two hundred days. They vary, 
in the salary to class teachers, from $2500 down 
to $250 and less. 

Only a small fraction of American 

The course of 

study in the children go to school before they are 
pre-eiementary gj^ Qf these, many begin directly 

with the work of the first grade of 
the elementary school. Those who are enrolled 
in pre-elementary schools have the curriculum 
which Froebel devised three generations ago, but 
somewhat enriched and adapted to American con- 
ditions. It is remarkable that this particular 
scheme of education should have been adopted so 
much more widely and absolutely in the United 
States than in any other country. And it is prob- 
able that the particular toys, songs, games and 
'busy work' which Froebel chose, and the se- 
quences which he recommended, will soon lose 
their preeminence, being replaced by better de- 
vices which the Froebels of to-day and to-mor- 
row will discover. It is also remarkable, and in 
my opinion fortunate, that the English custom of 
teaching reading, writing and spelling to children 
four and five years old is almost nowhere imi- 



268 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

tated in this country. It is being abandoned in 
England. 

The traditional elementary-school 

The course of i 7 7-,/ r 

study in the course represents the three R s 01 our 
elementary grandparents' days, plus a great deal 
more of the three R's, and also plus 
geography, the history of this country, drawing 
and music, and in some communities elementary 
science (called nature study, and most popularly 
a rather gentle study of plants and birds). 
Manual training, including sewing and cooking, 
and gymnastics are often added. The beginnings 
of certain high-school studies are sometimes 
offered in the last grade of the elementary school. 
In a few rare instances vocational courses are 
given in trade-schools of elementary grade. 

There is a variation from cities that retain a 
curriculum to-day substantially the same as the 
author remembers from thirty years ago, which 
was in turn the extension into an eight years' 
course of what was provided for his father sixty 
years ago, to cities where the newer subjects have 
been welcomed. The courses of study of two 
cities, not ten miles apart, shown in Figure 27, 
represent this variation in moderate degree. 

There is much variation in minor details. The 
portion of the total school-time given up to arith- 
metic ranges from an eighth to a fifth. The por- 
tion given up to spelling ranges from a fortieth to 
over a tenth ; the portion given to history ranges 
from a thirtieth to a fifteenth. These variations 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 



269 



^ ^ 

'}•: 



Reading ) 'Ji nu n I )) ni)))}))))) )))>)) n i n ))) )>> . ) n ix 

Grammarand 

Composition 



Arithmetic 



vn))ni)))))ni)>nm 



1 



Writing 



ezzzz223 



Geography 



\iniNn 



Physiology 






Music 



eZZZ3 



History 

Nature study' 

Training and 

Manual 

Training 

Fig. 27. The division of the school program among 
the different school subjects in the case of two cities. 
The facts in the case of the city which favors the newer 
subjects are represented by the unshaded strips. 

are, however, consistent with two uniformities. 
In general, the elementary-school curriculum in 
the United States is alike for all pupils, permit- 
ting no election of studies, and is almost ex- 
clusively academic* 

* The ungraded schools, which in general imitate the 
courses of study of city schools as far as their facilities 
will allow, agree almost unanimously in these two unifor- 
mities. 



2/0 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

These two features are, however, both being 
questioned. There is, indeed, hardly a single 
Future changes educational expert who thinks that 
in elementary the hundred thousand sixth-grade 
schools. children in New York City should all 

study the same things, or that they should all study 
nothing but academic subjects. The experts will 
agree that the offering made by the schools should 
be broadened and in some measure 'professional- 
ized' or Vocationalized.' And probably nobody 
who has thought about the matter sufficiently will 
disagree with them. The men and women who 
see no reason to give children an education dif- 
ferent from what was given fifty years ago forget 
that the number of days of schooling has in- 
creased by half since then, that things can be 
done in a school of twenty-five teachers and a 
thousand pupils that could not be done in a school 
of five teachers and two hundred pupils, and, 
most important of all, that the conditions of 
home life, community life and industry have 
changed enormously. 

The traditional elementary-school curriculum 
will soon be broadened and fitted to vocations as 
the college curriculum has already been. Voca- 
tional education will be given as freely as aca- 
demic education. Some children will be learning 
to take care of a gasoline-engine, or to apply the 
test for the butter-fat content of milk, or to type- 
write, instead of to name the capes and bays of 
Africa, to extract square root, or to tell who 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 2^1 

wrote Thanatopsis. And many children who now 

leave school altogether will be learning in school to 

do their work in life better and to enjoy it more. 

The course of study in American 

Changes 

in secondary Secondary schools grew up as a hybrid 
and higher f^-^^n that of the Latin schools and 

education. i r • r 

that of the academies of two genera- 
tions ago. The Latin school perpetuated itself in 
the college-preparatory course, which until re- 
cently gave half its time to Latin and Greek, and 
in a general reverence for Latin. The academy 
perpetuated itself in the 'English' course or 
'Academic' course and in the 'Scientific' half of 
the 'Latin-Scientific' course. For a while the 
high-school course tolerated only the languages, 
mathematics, history and the genteel sciences. 
When commercial subjects were introduced they 
were put in a separate and degraded course by 
themselves. 

It still retains signs of its ancestry, but the 
movement toward enrichment and vocational use- 
fulness that is barely beginning in the elementary 
curriculum is fairly under way in the high school. 
There is every reason to expect that any moder- 
ately long-lived student of this book will see agri- 
cultural, technical and trade courses (including 
those in the household arts, nursing and the like 
for girls) increase to be as large a proportion of 
secondary-school curricula as agricultural, en- 
gineering and professional courses now are of the 
curricula of higher education. 



2/2 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

The changes that have already taken place may 
be illustrated by comparing the offering of almost 
any city high school in 191 1 with its offering 
twenty years ago. In the case of one school 
chosen haphazard, such a comparison of the num- 
ber of courses in each subject, with allowance for 
the amount of class work per week, gave the fol- 
lowing results : — 

The offering in Latin and Greek remained the 
same. 

The offering in modern foreign languages in- 
creased by two thirds. 

The offering in English increased by one 
fifth. 

The offering in history and civics increased by 
one third. 

The offering in mathematics increased by one 
half. 

The offering in physics, chemistry, biology and 
other sciences increased by one fourth. 

The offering in commercial subjects increased 
fifteenfold. 

The offering in household and industrial arts 
and sciences rose from o to over fifty half-year 
courses averaging four points a week of class 
work; or, if we regard mechanical drawing, pat- 
tern-making, forging, sewing, cooking, chemistry 
of foods, dietetics and the like as the develop- 
ment from drawing— the only form of hand-work 
present in the school twenty years ago— there 



ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULA 2/3 

was an eighteenfold increase. Figure 28 shows 
these facts all together. 

The 'sociau- ^^^ ^^ ^^^ most important changes 
zation' of the that are taking place in our country's 
schools is their rapid acceptance of 
duties other than the mere instruction of children. 
Either as activities of the school system itself, or 
in close connection with it, we are establishing 
medical inspection in schools, nurses' visitations 
of homes, gymnasiums and playgrounds, school 
luncheons, special facilities for cripples, guidance 
of school athletics, study-rooms open till evening, 
school libraries and museums, traveling libraries 
and collections, evening lectures and entertain- 
ments, children's and parents' clubs, school banks, 
employment bureaus and offices for guidance in 
the choice of a vocation, school gardens and 
farms, and many other extensions of educational 
work far beyond mere teaching and lesson-get- 
ting. The school system of a community is be- 
coming an agency ready to act for the com- 
munity's welfare in almost any way. Its build- 
ings are becoming centers for the community's 
study and recreation ; its teachers are trying to 
cooperate with all forces for betterment ; its aims 
are becoming those of education in the widest 
sense — to make all men want what is good, and 
to get for all men the goods that they deserve. 

We hope that the schools can thus widen their 
own work and at the same time stimulate parents 



274 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

Latin and (^reek 



Modern 

Languages. 

English and 

History. 

Mathematics. 



Pure Science. 



"Book-keeping, 
JStenogr aphy, etc. 

Manual Training. 

Mechamcal Draw ing, 

etc 

Domestic Science, 
Domestic Art, etc. 



Fig. 28. The offering of a high school in 1890 (at the 
left) and in 1910 (at the right). The size of the 
rectangles measures, in each case, the number of 
different courses given in the subjects in question, 
each course being multiplied by the number of periods 
per week which are given to it. The number of sec- 
tions or classes taking the same course is not con- 
sidered. That is, it makes no difference whether a 
given course in English is given once or repeated five 
times. 



FISCAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION 275 

to do better by their children, children to do bet- 
ter by their parents, churches to do better by their 
neighborhoods, governments to do better by their 
citizens, and citizens to do better by one another. 
If they can assume responsibility in community 
affairs without any loss of the energy which the 
family and religious organizations of the past 
commanded, there will be a clear gain from the 
widening of the school's aims. 

§ 54. Fiscal Aspects of Education 

The value of the land, buildings, furniture and 
apparatus used for school purposes in the United 
Material States is, according to figures given 

equipment. ]^y ^-j-jg Bureau of Education for 1909, 
about fifteen hundred million dollars. Over nine 
tenths of this is owned by the public or by trus- 
tees for practically public use, and may be listed 
with roads, public waterworks, libraries, parks 
and the like, as a part of the property that the 
nation has acquired and will use, as well as it 
knows how, for the common good. On this prop- 
erty there is an indebtedness of not even two 
hundred million dollars. The invested funds and 
lands held as endowment for public schools were 
valued in 1909 at over three hundred and fifty 
million dollars. The funds belonging to second- 
ary and higher schools which are administered 
for the benefit of the public were over two hun- 
dred and fifty million dollars. Each person in the 



2y6 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

United States may therefore be said to own, or 
have held in trust for him, about twenty dollars' 
worth of land, buildings, equipment or endow- 
ment funds, devoted to school education. 

Roughly, one and a half per cent, of the total 
property of our country is held by the public, or 
in practical trust for the public, for service as 
school grounds, buildings, equipment and endow- 
ment. This may seem a very small fraction, and 
all truly patriotic men and women will certainly 
work to increase it, but it is beyond anything that 
the world has hitherto known. It seems pitifully 
small when one learns that in three years' time 
the nation expends as much for alcoholic bever- 
ages, — or that the cost of the Civil War in pen- 
sions alone would have paid for it twice over, — 
or that, by cutting the expense of our army and 
navy to what it was in 1897, we could double 
school facilities and endowment in ten years. 
It seems great when one considers that within 
a generation it has more than quadrupled, and 
that a few generations ago it was practically 
nil. 

community Public ownership is gaining rapidly 

ownership over private in the case of the mate- 

Of schools. • 1 X 'Vj.* j- j l' t-« 

rial facilities for education, ror in- 
stance, in the last twenty years, the increase in 
the value of the plants of privately owned second- 
ary schools, even including those held in trust for 
practically public uses, was only forty million 
dollars, whereas the increase for public high 



FISCAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION 277 

schools controlled absolutely by the community 
for the community's work was over two hundred 
and thirty million dollars. 

In education we are all converts to government 
ownership, believing that the facilities for edu- 
cating the next generation belong in the power of 
all men. Peacefully, and without attracting 
notice, the work of education has passed from the 
control of individuals and churches. Each com- 
munity is coming to own the tools for educating 
all its members. Privately owned schools for 
fundamental education seem likely to become in 
another century as rare as privately owned high- 
ways or canals now are. 

Differences ^^^^ variation among communities 

between in the extent to which they have de- 

communi es. ygjQpg^j material facilities for public 
education is instructive. The average community 
in Massachusetts owns seventeen times as much 
elementary- and high-school property per inhabit- 
ant as does the average community in Mississippi. 
The acquisition of public and semi-public prop- 
erty in the form of libraries, parks, playgrounds, 
baths, museums and the like runs somewhat 
closely parallel to the acquisition of school prop- 
erty, so that the variation is doubly significant. 
Further, where the public by taxing itself does 
most, there private philanthropy also is likely to 
do more. Provision for an educational plant, 
when taken with provision for teachers' salaries 
and current supplies, is thus perhaps the best 



278 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

single symptom of the degree of intellectual and 
moral advance of an American community. 
Expenses for The amount spent in 1909 for the 

maintenance, maintenance of schools* of all sorts 
controlled by the public, or by trustees for prac- 
tically public uses, was about four hundred 
million dollars. This country spends for educa- 
tion (per capita, or per child to be educated, or 
per dollar of the country's wealth) far more than 
England, France, or Germany. On the other 
hand, we spend for education, apart from new 
buildings, less than twice as much as for tobacco, 
and only about two and a half times as much as 
for military pensions. The value of the buildings 
that burn down in the course of the year would 
pay half the bill for public education ! 

The amount is increasing. The sum 
71i6ir increase 

spent for salaries for public elemen- 
tary and secondary schools was, in 1870, not quite 
a dollar per thousand inhabitants ; in 1890, about 
a dollar and eighty cents ; in 1909, over two dol- 
lars and sixty cents. The increase in the financial 
support of State universities and other institu- 
tions administered for the public welfare was 
even greater. But this increase is even yet short 
of wisdom and justice. As a country grows 
richer, a larger and larger fraction of its income 
should be invested in the training of its men and 
women. Just as a family which gave $200 out of 

* 'Maintenance' does not include any expenses for addi- 
tions to the permanent equipment. 



FISCAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION 279 

$2000 to the education of its children could well 
afford to give $400 if its income rose to $3000, 
and $800 if it rose to $4000, so a nation should 
give to education an increasing tithe from every 
increase in its income. 

Their Different communities vary enor- 

variations. mously in the amount that they spend 
on the public education of each child who lives to 
be twenty. Thus, Worcester and Springfield, 
Mass., spend two and a half times as much per 
child as Atlanta, Ga., and Richmond, Ya. ; Ala- 
meda spends over three times as much per child 
as New Orleans. The variation in the case of 
smaller communities would be as great. 

This variation is due to the fact that the chil- 
dren in the more fortunate cities attend school to 
a later age and higher grades, and still more to 
the fact that more money is spent per day's 
schooling. The cost for one pupil for one day's 
schooling in the public elementary and high 
schools of the country as a whole is, exclusive of 
the use of the school buildings and furniture, 
about sixteen cents.* His share of the cost for 
teachers' and supervisory officers' salaries is 

* It is well to note this fact. Every proposal for educa- 
tion should bear in mind the fact that a full year's school- 
ing is to be given for (on the average) twenty-five to thirty 
dollars in the elementary school, and about fifty dollars in 
the high school. Speculative writers about education often 
suggest means and methods of education in total disregard 
of the limits set by the limited funds for schools. The 
problem is always of the best that can be done with a 
amount of money. 



280 EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

twelve cents. In Worcester, however, the corre- 
sponding figures are twenty-one and fifteen cents, 
while in Richmond they are thirteen and a half 
and nine and a half cents. 

The money for schools, exclusive 

School receipts. . ' , , 

of proprietary schools managed for 

private gain, comes in part from fees paid by 
students, in part from the gifts of private in- 
dividuals, in part from public lands set aside for 
schools, and in part from taxes on individuals in 
proportion to the property they own. In the case 
of elementary and secondary schools, fees from 
students are now perhaps less than a twentieth of 
the receipts, gifts and the interest on previous 
gifts perhaps another twentieth, the income from 
public grants of land and from taxes making up 
at least nine tenths. In the case of higher educa- 
tion, fees from students, income from past and 
present gifts, and a property tax share more 
equally. But even in higher education, grants of 
public money now exceed either income from en- 
dowments or fees paid by students. Fees from 
students make up each year a smaller fraction, 
and although the gifts of individuals to desirable 
forms of education are greater in the United 
States than in any other country and are increas- 
ing in amount, they seem destined to play rela- 
tively a smaller and smaller part in the support of 
eduntion. Education is becoming, throughout, 
^ neither to be sold to the rich nor be- 

tions 



FISCAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION 281 

Stowed as a charity on the poor, but to be given 
to all as a public investment. 

The public management of a material equip- 
ment worth a thousand million dollars, and of a 
yearly budget of over four hundred million dol- 
lars, by the communities concerned, is one of the 
world's greatest experiments in democracy — and 
one of its most successful ones. As a rule, pri- 
vately owned schools do not give as good an edu- 
cation, even at greater cost; nor do they treat 
their employees as well ; nor do those in control 
of them show as much enterprise in seeking im- 
proved means and methods. 

Fault can be found with our attitude toward 
schools. It is, doubtless, below what idealistic 
hopes desire. But in the willingness of men of 
wealth to be taxed that all men's children may 
have opportunity, in the general honesty of school 
officers in spending school funds in the com- 
munity's interest, and in the general acceptance 
of the welfare of the community as the aim of its 
schools, we have the proof that, in at least one 
case, men can do better work as servants of the 
people than they would have done under the com- 
petition of the market for private gain, and the 
promise of a time when all men will work to- 
gether for the common good. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abilities, 102 ff. 

Abstraction, 98 ff. 

Acquired characters, non- 
inheritance of, 205 ff. 

Action system, 65 

Activity, original tenden- 
cies to, TJ f . ; of pupils 
in using knowledge, 
191 ff., 195 

Administration of schools 
in the United States, 
262 ff. 

Agents, educational, 118 f. 

Aims, of education, 9 ff. ; 
narrowness in. 14 f. ; ul- 
timate and proximate, 
16 ff. ; variety of, 17 f. ; 
doctrines concerning, 
19 ff.. 

Analysis, law of, 99 f . ; 
methods of teaching 
with respect to, 170, 

174 f. 

Ancestry, as a cause of 
individual differences, 69 

Anger, 87 f . 

Application, of knowl- 
edge, 129 f . ; as a step 
in instruction, 180 

Appreciation, as an ele- 
ment in culture, 46 

Approval, unlearned ten- 
dencies to, 82 f . 

Arithmetic, achievement 
in, 220 ff. ; variations 
among schools, 220 f . ; 
causes of, 221 f. ; rela- 
tion of to school grade. 



224 ff. ; effect of vaca- 
tions, 226 f . ; specializa- 
tion of, 227 f. 

Arrangement of studies, 
140 ff. 

Art, education as an, i f. 

Association, See Habits. 

Attention, ^jt^, 98 

Attitudes, of mastery and 
submission, 80 ff., of 
approval and scorn, 82; 
of desire and aversion, 
88 f. See also Interests. 

Bain, A., 171 

Body, role of, in educa- 
tion, 62 ff. 

Bryan, W. L., 105, 106 

Budget for education. See 
Fiscal aspects. 

Bullying, 86 

Capacities, 72 ff. 

Chance variations, as _ a 
cause of individual dif- 
ferences, 69 

Character, is intelligible, 
60 ff. ; physiological basis 
of, 62 ff ; individual dif- 
ferences in, 67 ff. 

Children. See Material for 
education and Students. 

Choice, of studies, 135 ff. 

COFFMAN, L. D., 250 f., 

258 f. 

Collecting, 74 f. 
Commercial education, in- 
crease of, 272, 274 



285 



286 



INDEX 



Comparison, as a step in 

instruction, i8o f. 
Composition, English, scale 

for, 214 ff. 
Constancy, law of, 171 f. 
Content-value, of studies, 

124 f . 
Continuation schools, 238 
Contrast, us€ of, in teach- 
ing, 180, 182 
Correlation of studies, 

141 ff. 
Cost of education. Sec 

Fiscal aspects. 
Course of study. See 

Curricula and Studies. 
Courtis, S. A., 224 fif. 
Cruelty, 86 
Culture, and utility, 23 ff. ; 

as an aim in education, 

45 ff, 

Curiosity, yj 

Curricula, of schools in 
the United States, 
267 ff. ; in the pre-ele- 
mentary school, 267 ; in 
the elementary school, 
268; variations in, 268 f. ; 
changes in, 270 f . ; in 
secondary schools, 271 f. ; 
the socialization of, 
273 f. 

Custom, versus reason in 
education, 48 ff . ; un- 
trustworthiness of, 49 f. 

Deductive methods, 183 f . 
Demonstrations, use of in 

instruction, 188 f . 
Deterrents, 201 f. 
Development, as an aim 

of education, 31 ff. ; as a 

method of teaching, 

192 f . 
Dewey, J., 53 
Disciplinary value of a 

study, 126 



Discipline, mental, as an 
aim of education, 42 ff. ; 
the possibility of, 112 ff. 

Discomfort, 88 f., 96 f. 

Discovery, the method of, 

193 ff. 
Display, education for, 32, 

50 f. 
Distribution, of practice, 

.173 

Divisor, greatest common, 
131 f. 

Dramatization, use of in 
instruction, 186 f . 

Drawing, arrangement of 
school course in, 146 ff. ; 
representative, 148; dec- 
orative, 148; illustrative, 
147, 149 ff. 

Drill, 170 ff. See also 
Practice. 



Earhart, L, B., 191 
Effect, law of, 96 ff. 
Election, of studies, 135 ff. 
Elementary schools. See 

Curricula, Schools, 

Studies, etc. 
Elimination, of pupils 

from schools, 231 ff. 
Emulation, 83 f. 
Equipment, of schools in 

the United States, 275 f. 
Evasive methods, 200 
Evening schools, 238 
Evolution, as an aim of 

education, 34 f. 
Example, teaching by, 198 
Exeroise, law of, 95 
Expenditures. See Fiscal 

aspects. 
Experimental methods, 

177 ff.. 
Expression, original ten- 
dencies to, 76; use of, 
in teaching, 185 ff. 



Feminization, of the teach- 
ing profession, 154 ff.; 
not due to favoritism, 
155 f. ; not due to lower- 
ed standards, 156 f. ; ef- 
fect upon the number 
of boys continuing in 
school, 158 f. 

Fiscal aspects of educa- 
tion, 275 ff. ; material 
equipment, 275 f. ; public 
and private ownership, 

276 f . ; differences be- 
tween communities in 
value of school plant, 

277 f. ; expenses for 
maintenance, 278 ; in- 
crease in school ex- 
penditures, 278 f. ; dif- 
ferences between com- 
mmiities in expenses 
for maintenance, 279 f . ; 
sources of school re- 
ceipts, 280 f . 

Formal discipline. See 
Discipline. 

Formal steps in instruc- 
tion, 180 ff. 



Generalization, as a step 
in instruction, 180, 182 

Good will, as an aim of 
education, 11 

Graphometer, 213 f. 

Gregariousness, 79 f. 

Growth, natural, as an 
aim of education, 34 f. 



Habits, formation of, 
95 ff. ; hierarchies of, 
43 f., loi ; guidance in, 
by personal teaching and 
by books, 164; methods 
of teaching with respect 
to, 170 ff. 



INDEX 287 

Handwriting, scale for, 
213 f. 

Happiness, as an aim of 
education, 19 ff. ; preju- 
dices against, 19 f. ; mis- 
understandings of, 20 f. 

Harter, N., 105, 106 

Health, as an aim of edu- 
cation, 14 

Heck, W. H., 53 

Hierarchies of habits, 
43 f ., lOI 

High schools, election of 
studies in, 135 ff. ; ef- 
fect of sex-balance of 
teaching staff of, 158 f.; 
retention of pupils in, 
210, 240 ff. See also 
Curricula, Schools, 

Studies, etc, 

HiLLEGAS, M. B., 214 

History, arrangement of 
the elementary-school 
course in, 144 ff. 

Hoarding, 74 f . 

Home training, and 
achievement in arith- 
metic, 223 

HuEY, E. B., 53 

Humanities, as an ele- 
ment of culture, 45 f. 

Hunting, instinct of, 73 f. 



Imitation, 86 f. 
Imperative methods, 198 f. 
Impersonal pleasures, as 

an aim of education, 12 
Impetus, law of, 170 ff. 
Incentives, 201 f. 
Individual differences, 

67 ff. ; their causes, 68 ff. 
Inductive methods, 179 ff. 
Industrial education, not 

devoid of idealism, 24; 

increase of, 272, 274 
Inheritance, as a cause of 



288 



INDEX 



individual differences, 
69; of the results of 
education, 205 ff. 

Instincts, of attending, 73 ; 
hunting, T^ f . ; collecting 
and hoarding, 74 f , ; 
visual exploration and 
manipulation, 75 f . ; vo- 
calization and facial ex- 
pression, 76; curiosity, 
'jy ; general mental activ- 
ity, yy f . ; general physi- 
cal activity, 78; social, 
79 ff. ; gregariousness, 
79 f . ; mastery and sub- 
mission, 80 ff. ; approv- 
ing and scornful be- 
havior, 82 f . ; emulation, 
83 f . ; motherly behavior 
and kindliness, 84 f.; 
teasing and bullying, 86; 
imitation, 86; anger, 87; 
original interests and 
play, 87 ff. ; the use of, 
in education, 90 ff. ; de- 
layed, 91 ; transitory, 
91 ; imperfect adaptation 
to the conditions of 
modern life, 91 f. ; re- 
direction of, 92 f . ; neg- 
lect of, 93 ; source of, 
206 f. 

Instrumental value of 
studies, 125 

Intellect, is intelligible, 
60 ff. ; physiological basis 
of, 62 ff. ; individual dif- 
ferences in, 67 ff. See 
also Abstraction, Anal- 
ysis, Attention, etc. 

Interests, 12, 47, 87 ff., 
102 ff. ; influence on 
habit-formation, 112; as 
determiners of the ar- 
rangement of studies, 
144, 146 ff. ; in drawing, 
149 ff. ; as affected by 



personal and by text- 
book teaching, 166 

James, W., 170, 171 

Kerschensteiner, G., 151 

Kindergarten, course of 
study, 267 

Kindliness, 84 f . 

Knowledge, 102 ff. ; as an 
aim of education, 35 ff. ; 
of how to use knowl- 
edge, 36; versus power, 
36 f. ; increase of, 37 f.; 
diffusion of, 38 f . ; and 
morality, 39 ; distribu- 
tion of, 40 f . ; values of, 
127 ff. ; active use of, 
encouraged by question- 
ing, 191 

Laboratory methods, 

177 ff.; their misuse, 178 

Leadership, 80 ff. 

Learning, laws of, 95 ff.; 
elements in, 109 f. See 
also Habits and Prac- 
tice. 

Lectures, use of, in in- 
struction, 188 f. 

Levinstein, S., 152 

McDouGALL, W., 79 f . 

Manipulation, 75 f. 

Manual training methods, 
185 ff. 

Mastery, instinct of, 80 ff. 

Material, for education, 
52 ff., 71 ff., 95 ff. ; equip- 
ment of schools in the 
United States, 275 f . 

Maternal instinct, 84 f . 

Maturity, as a cause of in- 
dividual differences, 70 

Meaning, of education, i ff. 

Means of education, 
117 ff., 135 ff.; defined. 



INDEX 



289 



117 f.; persons and 
things as, 118 f.; experi- 
ments with new means, 
119 f.; the school 
studies, 121 ff. See also 
Curricula, Fiscal aspects 
and Teachers 

Measurement, of educa- 
tional products, 212 ff. 

Methods in education, 
168 ff., 188 ff. ; deter- 
mined by the laws of 
situation and response, 
56 ff. ; variety of, 168 f. ; 
of habit formation and 
analysis, 170 ff. ; verbal 
and realistic, 175 ff. ; 
laboratory and experi- 
mental, 177 ff. ; induc- 
tive, 179 ff. ; deductive, 
183 f . ; expressive, 185 ff . ; 
telling and showing, 
188 ff. ; questioning, 

190 ff. ; stimulating helps, 

192 f . ; of discovery, 

193 ff. ; of study, 196 f. ; 
in moral education, 
198 ff. ; imperative, per- 
suasive and suggestive, 
198 f. ; evasive, suppres- 
sive and substitutive, 
200 f . 

Money price, an imper- 
fect measure of real 
values, 22; not opposed 
to real values, 23 

Moral education, methods 
in, 198 ff. 

Morality, as as aim of 
education, 29 f . ; and 
service, 29 ; due in part 
to knowledge, 39 

Multiple, least common, 
131 f- 

Nature, education accord- 
ing to, 34 f . 



Needs. See Wants. 
Neuro-muscular system, 

62 ff. 
New York, selection for 

continuance in school in, 

240 ff. 

Object lessons, 176 f. 
Organization of schools 
in the United States, 

262 ff. ; to fit age, 262 ; 
to fit ability, 263 ; to fit 
careers and studies, 

263 f . ; common types of, 

264 f . ; variations in, 

265 f. 

Original nature. See In- 
stincts. 

Originality, extravagant 
hopes of, in children, 
194 f. 

Penmanship. See Hand- 
writing. 

Perfectionism, as an aim 
of education, 31 ff. 

Persuasive methods, 198 f. 

Play, 89 f . 

Pleasures, impersonal, as 
an aim of education, 12 

Powers, 36 f ., 102 ff. 

Practice, 105 ff. ; amount 
of improvement from, 
106 f. ; limits of, 107 f. ; 
rate of gain in, 108 f . ; 
elements in, 109 ff. ; con- 
ditions of. III ff.; trans- 
fer of, 112 f.; distribu- 
tion of, 173; effect of 
lack of, 226 f. 

Precept, versus example, 
198 

Prediction, as a test of 
the value of knowledge, 
130 

Preparation, as a step in 
instruction, 180 



290 

Presentation, as a step in 
instruction, i8o, i8i 

Problem-solving, as an 
essential of proper 
study, 190 f . 

Program. See Curricula. 

Psychology, as one science 
of the material for edu- 
cation, 53 ; as a school 
subject, 122 

Public education. See 
Schools of the United 
States. 

Punishment, 201 f. 

Questioning, 190 ff. 

Race, as a cause of in- 
dividual differences, 68 

Reading, value of real 
content in, 128 f . 

Realistic methods, 175 ff. 

Reasoning, loi f. ; guid- 
ance in by personal 
teaching, 164 f . See also 
Selective thinking. 

Receiving system, 65 

Redirection of unlearned 
tendencies, 92 f. 

Reflexes, 72 

Rein, W., 142 

Repetition, in learning, 

95 f-, 171 f- . 

Required studies, 136 f. 

Response, as an element 
in behavior, 53 ff. ; as a 
determiner of methods 
in education, 58 f . 

Results of education, 
203 ff. ; beyond the gen- 
eration educated, 203 f . ; 
become fixed in things 
and institutions, 204 f. ; 
not necessarily in the 
germ-plasm, 205 ff. ; con- 
fused with the results 
of selection, 209 ff. ; 



INDEX 



complexity of, 211 f.; 

means of measuring, 

212 ff. ; scientific studies 

of, 219 ff. 
Rewards, 201 f. 
Rice, J. M., 220 f. 
Rivalry, 83 f. 

Salaries, of teachers in the 
United States, 248 ff. 

Satisfaction, of wants as 
an aim of education, 
13 f . ; original tendencies 
to, 88 f . ; influence on 
habit-formation, 96 f. 

Scales, for measuring edu- 
cational products, 212 ff. 

Schools, of the United 
States, 229 ff., 262 ff. ; 
the students, 230 ff. ; the 
teachers, 245 ff. ; organi- 
zation and courses of 
study, 262 ff. ; fiscal 
aspects, 275 ff. 

Science, education as a, 

2f. 

Sciences of hum.an nature, 
52f. . . . 

Scorn, instinctive, 82 f . 

Selection, as a condition 
of learning, 112; and 
training confused, 209 ff. ; 
for continuance in 
school, 240 ff. 

Selective thinking, 97 ff. 

Self-support, by students, 
238 

Sequences in the arrange- 
ment of studies, 140 ff. 

Service, as an aim of edu- 
cation, 27 ff. 

Sex-differences, 68, 94 

Situation, defined, 54 f . ; 
elements of, 55 ; as a de- 
terminer of methods of 
teaching, 56 ff.; activity 
of elements in, 98 f . 



INDEX 



291 



Skill, 47 f., 102 ff. 

Social instincts, 79 ff. 

Socialization of schools, 
273 f. 

Specialization, 31 ff.; to 
fit individual differences, 
70; of arithmetical 
abilities, 227 f . 

Specific value of a study, 
126 

Spencer, H., 31 

Stone, C W., 221 ff. 

Students, methods of 
learning by, 196 f . ; in 
the schools of the 
United States, 230 ff. ; 
number of, 230 f . ; length 
of education, 231 ff.; 
changes in the length 
of education, 234, 236 f . ; 
self-support by, 238; 
selection of, for reten- 
tion in school, 240 ff. 

Studies, values of, 121 ff.; 
election of, 135 ff. ; ar- 
rangement of, 140 ff.; 
correlation of, 141 f. 

Study, methods of, 196 f. 

Submission, unlearned ten- 
dencies to, 80 ff. 

Substitution, 92 f . ; in 
practice, no; in moral 
education, 200 f. 

Suggestion in education, 
198 f. 

Suppressive methods, 200 

Synapses, 64 



Teachers, men and wo- 
men as, 154 ff. ; of the 
United States, 245 ff. ; 
number, 245 ; proportion 
of women, 246 f . ; quali- 
ty, 247 ; salaries, 248 ff. ; 
amount of education, 
254 ff.; types of, 258 f. ; 



public estimation of, 
260 f . 

Teaching, personal versus 
text-book, 161 ff. See 
also Methods in educa- 
tion. 

Technical education, 272, 
274 

Telegraphy, learning-pro- 
cess in, 105 f . 

Text-books, 161 ff. ; mis- 
use of, 166 

Training. See Learning 
and Practice. 

Transfer, of practice ef- 
fect, 112 ff. 

Typewriting, learning pro- 
cess in, 106 f . ; as a 
school subject, 120 



United States, education 
in the, 229 ff., 262 ff. 

Unlearned tendencies, 34 f., 
72 ff., 90 ff. 

Utility, as an aim of edu- 
cation, 22 ff. ; and money- 
price, 22 f . ; and culture, 
23 ff. ; and service, 27 



Values, of life, 9 ff. ; not 
perfectly measured by 
money-price, 22 ; of 
studies, 121 ff. 

Van Denburg, J. K., 244 

Van Liew, C. C, 142 ff. 

Variation, as a condition 
in the learning process, 
III f . ; among schools in 
arithmetical achieve- 
ment, 220 

Varieties, of educational 
aims, 17 f.; of service, 
28 f . ; of human nature, 
67 ff. 

Verbal teaching, 175 ff. 



292 INDEX 

Verification in teaching Wants, create values, 9 ff. ; 

and learning, 180, 190 improvement of, 11 ff.; 

Vocalization, 76 satisfaction of, 13 f-; 

Vocational education, 23 f., conflict of, 15 

270 f. White, W. F., 227 

Women, as teachers, 
154 ff., 246 f. 
Wage-earning, education Wood-working, arrange- 

for, 22 ff. ; by students, ment of the course in, 

238 153 f- 



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